Cigarette Smoking among Out-of-School Adolescents in Sokoto Metropolis, North-West Nigeria

Cigarette smoking is a very wide spread activity and consumption of cigarette has today reached the level of a global epidemic. Every year 5,500billion cigarettes are manufactured and 1.1 billion people smoke cigarette worldwide.

Cigarette Smoking

In Nigeria, about 93 million sticks of cigarette are produced annually, with every one of these cigarette sticks being consumed. Cigarette smoking has been found to be associated with heart and chronic obstructive lung diseases. Lung and other cancers (bladder, pancreas, upper respiratory tract, oesophagus, stomach and leukemia) are increasingly being associated with cigarette smoking. Millions of people suffer illness and disability due to cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoking is associated with reduced life expectancy not only for active smokers but for passive smokers as well. Many factors have been put forward for adolescents’ engagements in smoking. These include normal developmental changes, psychological factors, and social environment. Under normal developmental changes, influence of peers, the need to conform and direct craving for cigarettes use have been mentioned. Read more>>>>>>