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Our thanks for helping develop and publish these booklets and exhibition go to:
Uriana Boye & Oral Health Promotion Team NHS HMR
Laura Baker and the Communications Team at NHS HMR
TASK Stop Smoking Service, Rochdale
Policy Research Centre, Leicestershire
Patient’s Council, Rochdale
Islamic Society of Britain
Brenda Gesicho - Equality Team Administrator
Amanda Elsworth - Health Development Officer
Tobacco: Facts and Myths
To order further copies or for more information please contact: [email protected] ©Oral Health Promotion HMRPCT www.mydentalhealth.org
Introduction
This booklet has been designed to complement an exhibition comprising of posters which tell a story about tobacco and its use particularly in Asian British communities. By reading through this particular story we hope that you will become better informed about tobacco, its many guises and dangers. Please pass on this information to others in your communities.
“Everything good that happens to you (O Man) is from God, everything bad that happens to you is from your own actions” (Qur’an 4-79)
“No blessing other than faith is better than health” (Hadith)
Dr. Khalid Anis
Dr. Khaja Amjad Hussain
Ruth Bardsley
Department of Oral Health Promotion
NHS Heywood Middleton and Rochdale
Contents
History of Tobacco
What’s Available - Smoking Tobacco
What’s Available - Chewing Tobacco
What’s In It?
Myths Around Tobacco Use
Why Do It?
Health Consequences Of Using Tobacco
Oral Cancer
Signs & Symptoms Of Oral Cancer
Islam & Tobacco
Where To Go For Help?
Page 3
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Page 25
History Of Tobacco
Tobacco is a green, leafy plant that is grown in warm climates. After picking it is dried, ground up and used in different ways. It can be smoked as cigarette, cigar or in a pipe. It can be chewed or sniffed through the nose (called snuff).
It is believed that Tobacco began growing in the Americas about 6,000 B.C. As early as 1 B.C. American Indians began using tobacco in many different ways.
Tobacco may have entered South Asia under Emperor Shah Jahan’s rule who built the world famous Taj Mahal when the Portuguese first started active and large scale trading on the Western shores of India in 1500s.
The tradition of chewing tobacco (paan) was made popular by Queen Noor Jahan, she discovered that by adding some ingredients like lime and areca nut to paan gives a natural red colour to the lips.
What’s Available Smoking Tobacco
The main types of tobacco available are:
1. SMOKING TOBACCO 2. CHEWING TOBACCO (SMOKELESS TOBACCO)
Cigarette: A cigarette is a small paper-wrapped cylinder. The cylinder contains tobacco leaves. When the non-filtered end is burnt, it results in the tobacco being burnt and creates smoke which is then inhaled.
Beedi: A beedi is a thin, often flavoured Indian cigarette made of tobacco wrapped in a ‘temburini’ leaf and secured by a coloured thread at one end. It is unfiltered and contains more nicotine than a cigarette.
Hookah: In a hookah pipe, the tobacco (often fruit flavoured) is heated by coal, and the resulting smoke passes through tubes and water to cool it down and ready for inhaling.
What’s Available Chewing Tobacco
CHEWING TOBACCO
Paan: Paan consists of chewing Betel leaf combined with the areca nut and lime.
Paan is available in different forms. Some varities like sada paan are plain, and metha paan are sweet.
The sada paan which has betel nut, mixed with lime and catechu and tobacco wrapped in a leaf.
The metha paan also has betel nut mixed with lime and catechu but, often sweeteners are added like supari and qimam.
Gutka/Paan Masala: Perfumed often sweetened mixtures of tobacco and nut powder. Can be chewed with or without a Paan leaf.
Naswar: Tobacco mixed with various mineral substances and held inside the lower lip.
What’s In It?
Smoking tobacco contains nicotine which is an addictive substance. It also contains other ingredients added for flavour and other properties. More than 4,000 individual chemicals have been identified in tobacco and tobacco smoke. Among these are more than 60 chemicals that are cancer-causing agents.
Smokeless tobacco or chewed tobacco contains at least 3,000 chemical compounds. Holding one pinch of chewing tobacco in your mouth for 30 minutes delivers as much nicotine as 3-4 cigarettes.
Along with nicotine & carbon monoxide other harmful chemicals present in tobacco are:
Nitrosamines – These are the most powerful cancer-causing agents.
Formaldehyde – Embalming fluid.
Alcohol – Rum, Rum Ether, Wine and Wine sherry which are poisonous.
Arsenic – A metallic element which forms poisonous compounds.
Myths Around Tobacco Use
.
MYTH It helps to relax.
FACT Cigarettes don’t make you relax. Nicotine is a stimulant. It actually speeds up your bodily functions - especially your heart rate.
MYTH Smoking a hookah is safer than other methods of tobacco smoking?
FACT Hookahs are not any safer than cigarettes. The risk may be higher because the hookah smoke is cooled by water and it can be inhaled more deeply and held for a longer length of time.
MYTH Chewing tobacco aids digestion.
FACT The nicotine in tobacco chewed in paan causes stomach ulcers. Chewing tobacco in paan increases the production of gastric juices which raise the acidity level and erode the stomach lining.
MYTH It makes you attractive.
FACT Chewing tobacco gives you bad breath and damages your gums - which can lead to tooth loss, it also stains your teeth.
“TOBACCO IN ALL FORMS IS HARMFUL”
Why Do It?
STReSS BUSTeR: Many people feel that using tobacco helps them to think, relax and deal more efficiently with stress. It also gives an artificial sense of confidence. Due to the addictive nature of tobacco, it produces a feeling of satisfaction and that makes it difficult to give up.
PeeR PReSSURe: Peer pressure is one of the most common reasons young people give for starting to smoke. They try to fit in with their peers by doing and liking the same things.
TOBACCO AdveRTISINg: Tobacco advertising also has a big influence on why people smoke. For years, the industry has focused on making smoking glamorous through advertising in movies,television, and billboards.
“TOBACCO IN ALL FORMS IS HARMFUL”
Health Consequences of Using Tobacco
CANCeR: Smoking tobacco is the single biggest cause of cancer in the world. Smoking causes at least twelve types of cancer including cancers of the lung, gullet, larynx (voice box), kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, cervix and mouth. Chewing tobacco can also cause cancer. Most forms of chewing tobacco increase the risk of mouth cancer.
STROke ANd HeART ATTACk: Nicotine in tobacco causes raised blood pressure and pulse rate, reduced blood supply which increases the risk of stroke and heart attack.
A PRegNANT SMOkeR: Is at higher risk of having her baby born prematurely and with an abnormally low birth weight. A woman who smokes during or after pregnancy increases her child’s risk of death from (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome - SIDS).
“SMOkINg IS AddICTIve”
Oral Cancer
Oral or mouth cancer most commonly involves the area of the lips or the tongue. It may also occur underneath the tongue, cheek lining, gingival (gums), or palate (roof of the mouth). These can be malignant and tend to spread rapidly.
Smoking kills around 114,000 people in the UK each year. Of these deaths about 46,000 are from smoking-related cancers.
Smoking and other forms of tobacco use are associated with 70-80% of oral cancer cases. Oral cancer causes around 1700 deaths in the UK every year.
Tobacco use in some Asian communities is much higher than the UK average. There is concern that rates of oral cancer may mimic much higher rates found in India and Pakistan. The number of deaths caused by smoking in India is expected to exceed one million within one year.
Oral cancer is very difficult to treat successfully, unless it is caught very early. Your dentist is in the best position to detect early signs of cancer.
Signs & Symptoms Of Oral Cancer
Oral cancer can mimic symptoms from other more common and less serious diseases.
It is important to be aware of these symptoms especially if you use tobacco.
Your dentist will be in the best position to check your mouth for any possible signs of oral cancer.
The best way to ensure you don’t develop any problems is to stop using tobacco!
Common symptoms of oral cancer include: An ulcer in your mouth which hasn’t healed within two weeks.
A lump inside your mouth or in your neck that hasn’t responded to other treatment.
Difficulty swallowing that has not responded to other treatment.
Red or red and white patches inside your mouth which have persisted for several weeks.
If you are concerned please make an appointment to see a dentist.
Islam & Tobacco
Muslims will often give up using tobacco in Ramadan. Faith can really help you to stop.
Most Muslim scholars believe that using tobacco is Forbidden (haram).
“It has become abundantly clear that, sooner or later, smoking, in whichever form and by whichever means, causes extensive health and financial damage to smokers. It is also the cause of a variety of diseases. Consequently, and on this evidence alone, smoking would be forbidden and should in no way be practiced by Muslims”. (Sheikh Gadul Haq Ali Gadul Haq Grand Imam of Al-Azhar)
“Sooner or later, all forms of smoking are bound to cause illness and disease. Most serious of these are heart diseases and cancer of the respiratory system and the urinary tracts. Smoking also involves wasting money. Accordingly, smoking, from the Islamic point of view, is haram, and people should, by virtue of their religious obligations as well as common sense, refrain from it”. (Sheikh Mustafa Muhammad al-Hadidi al-Tayr Member, Islamic Research Academy)
Where To Go For Help?
TIPS FOR QUITTING!
. Try not to take up habit of smoking/chewing tobacco. . If you are quitting by yourself, it is recommened that you stop completely on your quit date.
. Stop Smoking Groups are a great way to take the first step towards giving up. You’ll get support and advice. . YOUR HEALTH WILL IMPROVE AS SOON AS YOU STOP. . Regular visits to a dentist.
WHERE TO GET HELP?
TASK Stop smoking service NHS Heywood, Middleton & Rochdale Primary Care Trust: 01706 708000 NHS Smoking Helpline: 0800 1690169 Text phone: 0800 1690171
NHS ASIAN TOBACCO HELPLINE:
Urdu: 0800 1690881 Punjabi: 0800 1690882 Hindi: 0800 1690883 Gujarati: 0800 1690883 Bengali: 0800 1690885
www.givingupsmoking.co.uk
