The health effects of smoking cigarettes have been long debated. In the past the manufacturers did not want to consider the cigarette effects and instead pointed to the many people who smoked and were healthy and young. Yet over time the clinical trials have found beyond a doubt that the effects of smoking cigarettes are grim and the human body is in peril in response to the cigarette smoking effects.

At this point in time, the effects of cigarette smoking are linked to about 25% of deaths in men and about 10% of deaths in women. The effects of cigarettes have been seen in the increase of lung cancer and also the increase in impotence which is one of the rarely reported cigarette smoking health effects. Obviously the fact that virility is lost does not quite mesh with the rugged machismo of the Marlboro Man.

Long term effects of cigarette smoking include arterial narrowing, cancer of the voice box and esophagus, emphysema, cardiovascular ailments, and the ever increasing risk of a stroke. Health effects of cigarette smoking also include increase susceptibility to colds, bronchitis, and upper respiratory irritations. Cigarette effects have been portrayed in the aggressive anti-smoking campaigns aimed at pregnant women in an effort to reduce the number of birth defects and miscarriages. Quite possibly the scariest of all the long-term effects of smoking cigarettes is that of thrombosis of the arteries as well as the veins of the extremities which has led to the need for amputations.

While some are also concerned about what is the effect of cigarette smoke on household plants and pets, the effects of secondhand cigarette smoke on children and non-smokers are now also widely reported. These cigarette effects show that the ill effects of smoking cigarettes not only cause illness and premature death in the smoker but also in those who are in the vicinity of the person and thus breathing in the same carcinogens. The studies which have shown the adverse health effects of cigarette smoking on non-smokers have led to numerous bans of smoking in public places so as to minimize the cigarette effects on those who have made the conscious decision not to place themselves in danger in the first place by not smoking.

Another of the cigarette effects is the realization that a person must make at some point or another: they are addicted. Just like the heroin addict cannot wait until the next fix and will do anything to get it, the cigarette smoke effects now force the otherwise in control executive and also the smart housewife to huddle outside a building in the freezing cold just so as to inhale some nicotine which has gripped the individual in a merciless hug of both psychological and also physiological dependence.