Smoking

If you aren't ready to stop smoking

- then don't read this page.

·        Cigarette smoking is the most important source of preventable sickness and premature death in the United States and the world.

·        Smoking-related diseases cause an estimated 440,000 American deaths each year.

·        Smoking costs the United States over $150 billion annually in health care costs.

·        A 2004 Study by the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion found that cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer.

·        Women make up 39 percent of all smoking deaths.

·        Every day 3,000 children smoke their first cigarette.

·        At least 3 million teens are smokers.

·        20 percent of American teens smoke.

·        Of every 100,000 15 year old smokers, tobacco will prematurely kill at least 20,000 before the age of 70.

·        Of the 3,000 teens who started smoking today, nearly 1,000 will eventually die as a result from smoking.

·        Adolescent girls who smoke and take oral birth control pills greatly increase their chances of having blood clots and strokes.

More than 90 percent of adult smokers started when they were teens.

·        Although only 5 percent of high school smokers said that they would definitely be smoking five years later, close to 75 percent were still smoking 7 to 9 years later.

·        A person who starts smoking at age 13 will have a more difficult time quitting, has more health-related problems and probably will die earlier than a person who begins to smoke at age 21.

·        Kids who smoke experience changes in the lungs and reduced lung growth, and they risk not achieving normal lung function as an adult.

·        Kids who smoke have significant health problems, including cough and phlegm production and decreased physical fitness.