An estimated 45 million U.S. adults are smokers, and more than a third of all U.S. high school students smoke cigarettes. Yet tobacco use, particularly cigarette smoking, is the single most preventable cause of death in the United States. The number of deaths per year from smoking exceeds the number of deaths per year from all accidents, suicides, drug use, homicides, and AIDS combined.
Smoking is responsible for 87 percent of all lung cancer cases. If you smoke two packs of cigarettes a day for more than 15 years, your chances of developing lung cancer are 1 in 5. Smoking also has been linked to cancer of the bladder, throat, pancreas, mouth, and cervix. Further, smokers also put the people around them at risk. Nonsmokers who live with smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer themselves.
Chewing tobacco and snuff are not safe alternatives to cigarettes. They are just as addictive as cigarettes and can cause cancers of the mouth and throat at a young age.
No matter how many years you've smoked, it is never too late to improve your health by kicking the tobacco habit. Consult a smoking cessation program or contact the Smoking Quitline of the National Cancer Institute at 1-877-4487848 or the national quit line at 1-800-7848669 or www.smokefree.gov.
