3 out of 10 are smokers
By Azlan Othman 

Nearly 30 per cent of the population in this country are smokers, according to the latest official statistics available. One of the chemicals found in a cigarette, nicotine is an alkaloid contained in the leaves of several species of plants. The primary commercial source of nicotine is extraction from the dried leaves of tobacco plants.

Smokers usually start the habit as early as in their teens and are addicted to nicotine by the time they are adults; thereafter the choice to quit becomes an illusion. Though two-thirds of smokers want to quit, and about a third try each year, but only 2% have managed to succeed, Brunei's Institute of Chemistry stated.

It was also found that of all the possible ways of obtaining nicotine, smoking cigarettes remains by far the most addictive.

The reason is that smoking cigarette maximises the rapidity, frequency, reliability and ease of attainment of the reward from nicotine.

Nicotine via cigarettes reaches the brain in 10 seconds, faster than via intravenous use. It is much easier and cheaper to buy a pack of cigarettes, (for example from petrol stations or local supermarkets), than to buy a packet of nicotine gum.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin