Cigarettes Smoking Facts and Statistics

Cigarettes are very harmful to your health. The nicotine in cigarettes is just as addictive as heroine, and the additives, compliments of your friendly tobacco companies, are carcinogens (cause cancer). So, the government wants to cut down on health care costs? Lets start with shutting down the tobacco companies and ban the use and sale of cigarettes!

The below list of cigarette facts are published by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Cigarette Facts:

Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addictive.

Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction.

The pharmacologic and behavioural processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 different chemicals. At least 50 are known carcinogens (cause cancer in humans) and many are poisonous.

Cigrette smoking causes heart attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer). See smoking diseases.
Cigarette smokers generally weigh less (approximately 7 lb less on average) than non-smokers.

Stress increases cigarette consumption among smokers.

Smoking-material (lighted tobacco products including cigarettes) fires result in more deaths than any other type of residential fire.

One out of four fatal victims of smoking-material fires is not the smoker whose cigarette started the fire.

Tobacco dependence and nicotine addiction can be treated successfully.

The World Health Organization estimates that tobacco 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century.

The death toll is projected to reach more than 8 million by 2030 if current trends continue.

Almost half of the world's children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, which worsens their asthma conditions and causes dangerous diseases.

The International Labour Organization estimates that at least 200 000 workers die every year due to exposure to smoke at work.

Tobacco kills up to half of its regular users.

On average 29% of people around the world smoke tobacco.

Tobacco caused 100 million deaths in the 20th century. If current trends continue, there could be up to one billion deaths in the 21st century.

An estimated 700 million children, or almost half of the world's children, breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, particularly at home.

Now here is where I have to jump on my soapbox. If it is one thing that gets under my skin is smoking around the children. I have seen children in the company of adults who were smoking in the car, and the poor kid had some part of his shirt pulled up around his face to avoid the toxic smoke an adult was blowing in his face. As far as I am concerned, this is child abuse.

Children who are exposed to cigarette smoke have more health issues than children who are not. They have more upper respiratory infections, such as colds and ear aches, as well as asthma. If you are an adult who smokes around your children, I am talking to you. Stop it!

by Barb Hicks, RN/LMT