June 15, 2006
Many people think iqmik is safer than smoking cigarettes. All tobacco is harmful whether you smoke it or chew it. Cigarettes, snuff, iqmik or blackbull all contain nicotine and many cancer-causing chemicals. All of them are very dangerous to your health.
Chemicals from iqmik go into the blood stream through the lining of your mouth. One of these chemicals is a drug called nicotine. You may have heard that heroin and cocaine are very addictive, but nicotine can be more addictive than those drugs.
Nicotine causes the blood vessels to become hard and narrow. This makes your heart beat faster and harder, putting you at risk for heart attack, stroke and heart disease.
When people mix iqmik in their mouth, their heart starts to pound hard and fast, and they may feel dizzy and sick to their stomach. These are symptoms of nicotine poisoning, which may happen when you get too much nicotine from mixing ash with tobacco.
Nicotine poisoning causes:
• Dizziness
• Fast Heart Beat
• Throwing up
• Seizure
• Extra Spit In Mouth
Some people think that there’s a drug in punk and alder ash, but that’s not true. Adding punk ash or alder ash to tobacco just makes the nicotine reach your brain faster, and it also makes more nicotine enter the bloodstream.
Chewing iqmik can also cause:
• Bad Breath
• Gum Disease
• Tooth Loss
• Sores and white patches in the mouth, tongue and throat which can turn into cancer
• Blocking sense of taste and smell, making you use more sugar and salt
• Sores in stomach
• Slower healing of wounds, catch more colds and be sick longer
• Hairy tongue
Prevent this from happening to you and be a positive role model for the next generation by beating tobacco abuse.
If you want information on tobacco and health, or are interested in stopping tobacco, contact us at 1-800-478-3321 or 543-6312.
World No Tobacco Day
Cessation Counselor Flora Demantle of Nicotine Control & Research hosted a booth at the AC store in observance of World No Tobacco Day May 31. We had the highest turnout compared to the years since we started observing this event in Bethel. The total number of people who signed up to be tobacco free for the day or for life was 36. In the past, that number averaged around 12.A big THANK-YOU goes to Peter Christian, Diabetes Program Coordinator; Angela Hochreiter, Healthy Hearts Program Coordinator; Beth Allen, Healthy Hearts Case Manager; and Lisa Aguda from Health Education, who donated prizes for this event.