Written By: Halimah Oluwayemi
This deadly figure is just three inches tall but has wrecked and ruined lots of lives and home. I’m referring to that little thing that often balance itself between the index and the middle finger, so tiny but yet capable to cause great harm to those dragging it directly into their system and those close enough to inhale. This killer is what we call “cigarrettes” , and often time it’s never alone as it is often found in the company of alcohol its very faithful accomplice and partner in crime.
If you’ve ever had a first hand experience of fire outbreak in a confined space with furnitures or papers and have seen the stains the smoke leaves behind after the outbreak is over, or even the exhaust of the simple generator we use at times as an alternative when there is loss of electric power, if we are to observe where this generator has been stationed we will find the same thick black stains in form of congeal dust.
This brings us back to our initial discussion about cigarette being an assassin, because this same coloured, stained dust is what the smoke becomes when it gets into our system. They find their way into our lungs where our precious oxygen lives and causes all sort of diseases ranging from acute respiratory problems to cancer of the lungs.
Being privileged to worked in a hospital as an intern in the medical laboratory, was an eye opener because I came across different types of ailment and realized how much people suffer from this act of smoking that has suddenly become a norm. An unforgettable experience was that of a two years old baby who had difficulty in breathing and was rushed to the hospital by the mom who also had a bad cough, the baby girl died before the doctor could start a procedure, on seeing her daughter’s lifeless body the grieving mother started raining curses on her husband who was in absentia. The words she uttered in her state of grieve and anger led us to the discovery of how her husband who is the father of the deceased child was an heavy smoker who smokes indoor regardless of a baby’s presence in the house. We need to create awareness so people can understand that as bad as first hand smoking is, passive smoking is worse, I.e being around those who smoke, Which is almost the same as taking the drag itself.
Let’s not forget Alcohol, the henchman in a bottle, the one which is capable of draining one’s sanity if taken at the rate ones body mass can’t withstand. Over the years there have been several attempts made in order to know what threshold or amount of alcohol is appropriate for one to consume at a single sitting, but the result has always been inconclusive because everyone has a different body mass and capacity to hold their liquor. The aim here isn’t to bore ourselves with scientific jumbles, but rather it’s to explain the dangers that this things cause using layman’s English and domestic illustrations.
We should be familiar with the sieve we use in our homes mostly in the kitchen to separate our liquid solution from any form of solid impurities using the filtration method. This sieve, we know after being used for many years will begin to worn out and due for changing. Well what this sieve does in our kitchen is similar to what the kidney does in our system, it acts as the sieve that filters our blood and helps us to pass out waste. And alcohol when pumped into the system is a toxic waste that needs to be passed out therefore over working the kidney that has other functions to carry out at the same time, and just like the sieve in our homes when we give it more than it can bear it gets worn out and ruptures.
Since we human are said to be the most intelligent of all creatures, one can’t help but imagine how we are still capable of getting addicted to something such as ciggarate that comes with a warning that “smokers are liable to die young”. Sometimes It seems as if the warning isn’t scary enough, maybe if it had been written as “smokers are liable to die a very slow and painful death putting other people’s life at risk” maybe it would have made a better sense. A friend of mine once said, “if our creator wanted us to take in drags of smoke, he would have created us with a chimney over our head and not just lungs where the smoke will have to compete with our source of life.”same as alcohol to which we have advised to “drink responsibly” but often times after the first decent two bottles of beer, some just throw caution to the wind and drink till they can’t feel their legs. Then they become the grim reaper behind a wheel, Causing several cases of drunken drivers taking the lives of promising souls on the road. After all had been said we need to ask ourselves if the flimsy pleasure we feel from this things are really worth the risk on the long run, starting from the damage it does to our health and how it affect innocent lives dependent on us.
