Nicotine

What Is It?

Nicotine is the drug in tobacco leaves. Whether someone smokes, chews, or sniffs tobacco, he or she is delivering nicotine to the brain. Each cigarette contains about 10 milligrams of nicotine. Nicotine is what keeps people smoking despite its harmful effects. Because the smoker inhales only some of the smoke from a cigarette and not all of each puff is absorbed in the lungs, a smoker gets about 1 to 2 milligrams of the drug from each cigarette. [1] A drop of pure nicotine would kill a person-in fact, nicotine can be used as a pesticide on crops. [2]

What Are the Common Street Names?

You might hear cigarettes referred to as smokes, cigs, or butts. Smokeless tobacco is often called chew, dip, spit tobacco, or snuff.

How Is It Used?

Tobacco can be smoked in cigarettes, cigars, or pipes. It can be chewed or, if powdered, sniffed.

An alternative to cigarettes is "bidis." Originally from India, bidis are hand-rolled. In the U.S., bidis are popular with teens because they come in colorful packages with flavor choices. Some teens think that bidis are less harmful than regular cigarettes. But bidis have even more nicotine, which may make people smoke more, causing them to be more harmful to the lungs than cigarettes. [3]

How Many Teens Use It?

More than 3 and one-half million teens between the ages of 12 and 17 use tobacco-that's about 15 percent of teens that age. Of those, just over 3 million, or 13 percent, smoke cigarettes. In the U.S., 66.5 million people, or about 29 percent of the population, use tobacco. [9]

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