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The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars each year to create and market ads that shows smoking as exciting, glamourous and safe.
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Movies showing people smoking are another big influence. Studies showed that young people who sees smoking in movies are more likely to start smoking.
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Smoking is most likely to become a habit during the teen years. The younger you are when you begin to smoke, the more likely you are to become addicted to nicotine.
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Nicotine is a drug that occurs naturally in tobacco and it's thought to be as addictive as heroin or cocaine.
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Nicotine and other chemicals in tobacco smoke are easily absorbed in blood through the lungs. From there, nicotine quickly spreads throughout the body.
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When taken in small amounts, nicotine causes pleasant feelings and distracts the user from unpleasant feelings. This makes the tobacco user want to use more.
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Nicotine works very much like other addicting drugs, by flooding the brain's reward circuits with a chemical called dopamine.
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