Tobacco and nicotine

What is tobacco?

Tobacco is made from the big green leaves of the tobaccoplant. There are lots of different spieces of tobacco and many tobaccoplants are commonly used as ornamental plants. Some of these can be purchased at the florist. The tobacco plant is grown almost all over the world. It thrives, however, not as good in cold climates as in hot. The most common is to air dry the tobacco leaves after harvest. You hang up the leaves by strings in a barn and let them dry. A snus can contain over 20 different varieties of tobacco. Where the tobacco is from all depends on things like how the weather and harvest has been. Tobacco is mostly used when making cigarettes and smokeless tobacco such as snus, chewing tobacco and so on.

What is nicotine?

In all tobacco there is nicotine. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug that affects the brain's pleasure centers in a similar way as heroin and cocaine does. Therefore, you may experience severe withdrawal symptoms when you stop using nicotine. Abstinence may present as insomnia, dizziness, headaches, sweating, anger, etc. One can also feel extremely restless and have difficulties in concentrating. It is quite common to gain som weight when you quit smoking. You gain weight because your body is used to the nicotine affecting your metabolism. The nicotine has alsodisturbed your body fluid-regulating hormones.The weight you collect is therefore most liquid and will go back to normal if you eat right and exercise normally. If you want to avoid gaining weight when you stop smoking you can switch to another more healthy product that contains nicotine.

Better for your health

Alternatives that's better for your health than smoking is for example snus, nicotinegum and nicotinepatches.