SMOKING - FACTS...

Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 different chemicals. At least 43 are known carcinogens (cause cancer in humans). Some are:

1. Benzene (petrol additive):A colourless cyclic hydrocarbon obtained from coal and petroleum, used as a solvent in fuel and in chemical manufacture - and contained in cigarette smoke. It is a known carcinogen and is associated with leukaemia.
2. Formaldehyde (embalming fluid): A colourless liquid, highly poisonous, used to preserve dead bodies - also found in cigarette smoke. Known to cause cancer, respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal problems.
3. Ammonia (toilet cleaner):Used as a flavouring, frees nicotine from tobacco turning it into a gas, found in dry cleaning fluids.
4. Acetone (nail polish remover): Fragrant volatile liquid ketone, used as a solvent, for example, nail polish remover - found in cigarette smoke.
5. Tar: Particulate matter drawn into lungs when you inhale on a lighted cigarette. Once inhaled, smoke condenses and about 70 per cent of the tar in the smoke is deposited in the smoker's lungs.
6. Nicotine (insecticide/addictive drug): One of the most addictive substances known to man, a powerful and fast-acting medical and non-medical poison. This is the chemical which causes addiction.
7. Carbon Monoxide (CO) (car exhaust fumes)-An odourless, tasteless and poisonous gas, rapidly fatal in large amounts - it's the same gas that comes out of car exhausts and is the main gas in cigarette smoke, formed when the cigarette is lit.
8. Arsenic (rat poison),
9. Hydrogen Cyanide (gas chamber poison)

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CASH BENEFITS...

Since the typical smoker spends 35,000 Indian Rupees per year on cigarettes; one might wonder what could be bought with that money instead. Here are some examples:

1. They could play 2,800 video arcade games
   
2. Talk to a friend on the phone in another state for 126 hours and 22 minutes


3. Shop till they drop for music – about 45 compact discs!
   
4. Buy 1186 packs of sugar free gum – a better habit!


5. If they saved the 35,000 Indian Rupees every year in a bank account earning 5% interest, they would have 1.23254806 million Indian Rupees after 20 years. Talk about being able to buy a nice car!

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1. Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality in the United States and the world.
2. Smoking-related diseases cause an estimated 440,000 American deaths each year.
3. Smoking costs the United States over $150 billion annually in health care costs.
4. 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.
5. Women account for 39 percent of all smoking deaths.
6. Each day 1500 more of American youngsters become regular smokers.
7. 1/3 of them will die prematurely from this habit.
8. 1200 Americans die every day from tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke. That is one person every 72 seconds.
9. Tobacco industries spend over $34.1 million a day in marketing its products in the U.S. alone.
10. Smoking kills more than 400,000 Americans and costs more than $89 billion in health care expenditures every year.
11. Tobacco-related health care bills cost the states and taxpayers billions of dollars each year under Medicaid and other state-funded health care programs.
12. 5 million people die annually from smoking throughout the world.
13. About 90% of all adults who smokes took their first puff at or before the age of 18.
14. Every eight seconds, someone in the world dies due to tobacco
15. In the US, smoking causes about 445 new cases of lung cancer every day.
16. Over 50,000 people a year die from secondhand smoke in the US alone.
17. People that smoke have 10 times as many wrinkles as a person that does not smoke.
18. Research has indicated that approximately eleven minutes are cut off the life of an average male smoker from each cigarette smoked.
19. Tobacco kills more Americans than AIDS, drugs, homicides, fires, and auto accidents combined.
20. 1 out of 3 smokers are estimated to eventually die from a tobacco-related disease.
21. A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day will on average lose two teeth every ten years.
22. A study indicates that smokers are likely to die on average six and a half years earlier than non-smokers.