Smoking can cause lung disease by damaging your airways and the small air sacs (alveoli) found in your lungs. 1,2 Lung diseases caused by smoking include COPD, which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. 1,2 Cigarette smoking causes most cases of lung cancer. Sep 17, 2020 Smoking crack cocaine (the freebase form of cocaine) can lead to cancer of the lungs as well as death. Unfortunately, “freebasing” crack is the most common form of ingestion today – surpassing even snorting cocaine.
Toxins make the tiny airways in your lungs swell. This can make your chest feel tight and can cause wheezing and shortness of breath. If you continue smoking, the inflammation can build into scar. In addition to the usual risks associated with cocaine use, crack users may experience severe respiratory problems, including coughing, shortness of breath, lung damage and bleeding. Long-term effects from use of crack cocaine include severe damage to the heart, liver and kidneys.
Most people understand that smoking affects the lungs along with practically every other organ in the human body and increases the risk of developing many various diseases.
But certainly the one part of your body that is arguably the most affected by smoking is your lungs.
Let’s take a closer look at what exactly a smoking habit does to your lungs. How smoking affects the lungs.
Changes in Appearance
Because they’re continually pumped up with oxygen, normal and healthy lungs are plump and pink.
They may not be pretty to look at, but they’re clean and pure.
However, you can instantly recognize a smoker’s lungs on sight.
Smokers’ lungs are black.
The black color is because every time you inhale a cigarette, it deposits tar in your lungs.
Over time and after smoking lots of cigarettes every day, enough tar deposits build up inside the bronchioles until it is distributed throughout the entire lungs. On top of that, you may have separate dark spots from smoking related pollution, too.
Although it’s not as visible to the naked eye, there are a lot of tiny changes inside your lungs, too.
Your lungs have little hair-like structures called cilia, which act like gentle brushes to move particles through your lungs and help you to breathe better.
But smoking ultimately damages off those cilia, so you don’t get the same benefits they offered.
The cilia rest overnight when you don’t smoke, but eventually that damage can become permanent.
The Dreaded “Smoker’s Cough”
You’re probably familiar with the sound of an older person who has smoked for many years because they have a distinctive hacking cough, often called the “smoker’s cough.”
The smoker’s cough doesn’t just sound unpleasant – it’s also very uncomfortable for the one doing the coughing.
The chemicals in smoke, like hydrogen cyanide, irritate the lining of your bronchial passages and cause inflammation that leads to coughing.
Your lungs do work to try to remove the tar you inhale by smoking, by moving it out of the lungs through the bronchiole tubes and up into the trachea.
But nicotine paralyzes the cilia, so that causes the coughing because your lungs have to work that much harder.
Whatever irritants you can cough up comes out in the form of phlegm.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Imagine never feeling like you can get enough air into your lungs, and how hard that would make it for you to breathe.
That’s exactly what happens if you have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, which is a serious illness that’s believed to be caused by cigarette smoking.
Other conditions, particularly certain jobs like coal mining or working in an environment with very bad air quality, can also lead to COPD.
Emphysema is sometimes referred to as a separate illness from COPD, but emphysema is actually an early stage of the other disease and refers to changes that are occurring within the lungs.
Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are both associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and symptoms feel like extreme shortness of breath, wheezing, being unable to catch your breath and intense coughing.
Ultimately, COPD is really bad news, because it almost always gets gradually worse and results in death.
Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is the biggest bad news you can get when you’re a smoker.
Although some cases of lung cancer can be caused by other factors, like exposure to radon, asbestos and radiation, the vast majority of cases of lung cancer happen to smokers or people who live with smokers.
About 85 to 90 percent of people with lung cancer are current or former smokers.
Although lung cancer can be somewhat treatable when caught in the early stages, it’s often undiscovered until it’s too late because the symptoms are mistaken for allergies or other chronic respiratory symptoms associated with smoking.
Recovering Your Breath
Your lungs provide the literal breath of life, and they can do a lot to regenerate themselves when they’re exposed to damage.
But a regular smoking habit really takes a major toll on your lungs, and in many cases your lungs just can’t overcome the amount of damage.
Even though smoking affects the lungs, the good news is that your body has a big capacity to heal, and the sooner you quit smoking, the sooner you reduce the risk of damage to your lungs.
For further help, check out – How to Detox After Quitting Smoking – 9 Simple Tips.
The substances that are used and abused within our modern society are quite numerous. Some of these can be valuable for certain legitimate purposes, but others are completely illegal and used only for the recreational purpose of getting high. There are various types of drugs that people use purely for recreation, and some have been around for years, whereas others were formulated more contemporarily. One type of illegal substance that has been around for quite some time is crack cocaine. Crack entered the scene sometime in the 1980s, and it has since been one of the most used and abused illicit substances. Smoking crack is where the name comes from because of the crackling sound it makes when smoked.
Crack differs from typical cocaine in several ways. The first major difference is the form in which it comes. Regular cocaine comes in the form of a powder that people often snort, though it can also be smoked or injected, but this is less common. Crack on the other hand looks like a crystal, which is commonly referred to as a “rock.” It can be created through a few different processes, but usually involves mixing powdered cocaine with baking soda, ammonia, and water. Once the water dissolves, crack cocaine crystals will form. Crack is most frequently used by smoking the rock in a pipe, but some may also crush and snort it, or dissolve and inject it.
While crack and powdered cocaine are essentially the same base substance, they can have varying effects upon an individual. They will have some similar direct effects, but the major difference is the time it takes for these effects to manifest and how long they last. Crack typically has quicker effects upon an individual because it is usually smoked, which reaches the brain and bloodstream more rapidly. The high that it produces for a person is also generally more intense than that of its typical form, though it tends to be a shorter duration. When an individual snorts cocaine, the effects can last around 15-30 minutes, whereas crack’s effects only tend to last about 5-10 minutes.
The direct effects of smoking crack can include:
Being that crack can have short-lived effects, this can prompt individuals to keep smoking crack. The short-term high could result in them consuming significant amounts over time as they keep re-upping their high. It could also lead to the development of tolerance, meaning it will require larger amounts for them to experience the same desired effects. Over time, this can result in the development of physical dependence and addiction as well.
Of course, smoking crack can have a broad range of dangers and side effects, including:
If you or a loved one are seeking help with an addiction to crack, have been smoking crack, or some other type of substance, give Best Drug Rehabilitation a call today. We help thousands to find the right treatment program for their needs. We understand that every single person’s addiction is unique in a multitude of ways, and it must be addressed as such to provide the best success. Give us a call today, and one of our staff will answer any questions that you may have about our services.