Smoking Cigarettes
Are they worth it to you?
Tobacco use leads to disease and
disability.
• Smoking causes cancer,
heart disease, stroke, and
lung diseases (including
emphysema, bronchitis,
and chronic airway
obstruction).
• For every person who
dies from a smokingrelated disease, 20 more
people suffer with at least
one serious illness from
smoking.
Tobacco use is the leading preventable
cause of death.
• Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 5 million
deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco
use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by
2030.
• In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for
about one in five deaths annually (i.e., about 443,000
deaths per year, and an estimated 49,000 of these
tobacco-related deaths are the result of secondhand
smoke exposure.
• On average, smokers die 13 to 14 years earlier than
nonsmokers.
Tobacco use costs the United States
billions of dollars each year.
• Cigarette smoking costs more
than $193 billion (i.e., $97
billion in lost productivity plus
$96 billion in health care
expenditures).
• Secondhand smoke costs
more than $10 billion (i.e.,
health care expenditures,
morbidity, and mortality).
Percentage of U.S. adults who
were current smokers in 2009
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20.6% of all adults (46.6 million people)
23.2% of American Indian/Alaska Native adults
22.1% of white adults
21.3% of African American adults
14.5% of Hispanic adults
12.0% of Asian American adults (excluding
Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders)
Thousands of young people and
adults begin smoking every day.
• Each day in the United States,
approximately 3,900 young people
between 12 and 17 years of age smoke
their first cigarette
• An estimated 1,000 youth become daily
cigarette smokers.
Many adult smokers want or try to quit
smoking.
• Approximately 70% of smokers want to
quit completely.
• Approximately 45% of smokers try to quit
each year.
• Smoking and smokeless tobacco use are almost always
initiated and established during adolescence.
• Most people who begin smoking during adolescence are
addicted by the age of 20.
• Additionally, adolescent smokeless tobacco users are
more likely than nonusers to become adult cigarette
smokers.
• Youth cigarette use declined sharply during 1997–2003;
however, rates have remained relatively stable over the
past several years.
• Why?
• Youth smokeless tobacco use also declined in the late
1990s and early 2000s, but an increasing number of
• U.S. high school students have reported using
smokeless tobacco products during the past few years.
Percentage of high school students
who were current cigarette smokers in
2007
• 20.0% of high school students
• 18.7% of female high school students
• 21.3% of male high school students
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/index.htm
Smoking and Increased Health Risks
• Compared with nonsmokers, smoking is
estimated to increase the risk of—
• coronary heart disease by 2 to 4 times
• stroke by 2 to 4 times
• men developing lung cancer by 23 times
• women developing lung cancer by 13 times
• dying from chronic obstructive lung diseases
(such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema) by
12 to 13 times.
• Smoking causes coronary heart disease, the
leading cause of death in the United States.
Smoking and Cancer
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Smoking causes the following
cancers:
Acute myeloid leukemia
Bladder cancer
Cancer of the cervix
Cancer of the esophagus
Kidney cancer
Cancer of the larynx (voice box)
Lung cancer
Cancer of the oral cavity (mouth)
Cancer of the pharynx (throat)
Stomach cancer
Cancer of the uterus
Increased risk of breast cancer
Smoking and Other Health Effects
• Smoking is associated with the following
adverse health effects: infertility, preterm
delivery, stillbirth, low birth weight, and sudden
infant death syndrome (SIDS).
• Smoking is associated with the following
adverse health effects:
– Postmenopausal women who smoke have lower bone
density than women who never smoked.
– Women who smoke have an increased risk for hip
fracture than women who never smoked.
The question is:
Will you pick up that
cigarette and put the
death stick to your lips?