title: The natural history of smoking.
abstract: This study is a small collection of the natural history of smoking of 865 persons - all smokers and majority (97.11%) of them were males, more than 80% were between 21-50 years, most (90%) were Hindus and 75% were service holders. It revealed that most of the subjects started smoking between 10 and 25 years of age, frequently being requested by their friends but felt nothing mentionable at their first experience. Most of them (64%) were smoking for more than 10 years, 48.56% were smoking more than 10 cigarettes in a day, filter-tipped more often (by 64% subjects) and without any history of break by 56% subjects. Majority (80%) used to inhale the smoke and 40% had no specific time of choice. Most of the subjects (80%) like to smoke in deep thoughts, 66% during excitement, 60% when depressed, 82% when relaxed and 62.5% when alone. But most of them (64%) did not smoke when busy. Majority (70.87%) felt relaxed when smoking. Most of the people (45%) stood reasonable having no cigarette in their stock. Majority (84%) used to smoke even when not offered. Tobacco was consumed largely as smoke by 75% subjects; 78% subjects smoked only cigarettes and about half of the smokers smoked even when they did not enjoy it.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiotherapy, RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Calcutta.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Basu
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Ganguly
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Datta
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology; D013315:Stress, Psychological