Cigarette smoking is well-known for its many damaging effects on human health: emphysema, chronic bronchitis, COPD, lung cancer, stomach cancer, throat, tongue, and esophageal cancer, peripheral vascular disease and numerous other conditions. What is not as well appreciated is the fact that smoking cigarettes delays recovery of disc pathology causing neck or back pain. People who smoke and suffer with back pain have an added incentive to quit smoking altogether. Smoking also prevents proper bone fusion in patients who have undergone surgery for severe back pain. For this reason, oftentimes surgeons will refuse to perform the surgery in patients who have not yet quit smoking.