11 Facts About Smoking

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1. About 8.6 million people in the US have at least 1 serious illness that’s caused by smoking.^[Department of Health and Human Services. "Cigarette Smoking-Attributable Morbidity:United States, 2000." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5235a4.htm.]
2. Smoking is the cause of 1 in 5 deaths in the US annually. And tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death.^[U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress. A Report of the Surgeon General”. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014. Printed with corrections, January 2014. Accessed February 19, 2014.]
3. About 1.69 billion pounds of butts end up as toxic trash each year, making cigarettes the most littered item on Earth.^[Carlozo, Louis R. "Cigarettes: 1.7 billion pounds of trash." Chicago Tribune, 2008.]
4. For every person that dies from a smoking-related disease, there are 20 more who suffer from at least 1 serious illness associated with smoking. Get tobacco out of pharmacies through Take Back the Shelves.^[Department of Health and Human Services. "Cigarette Smoking-Attributable Morbidity:United States, 2000." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5235a4.htm.]
5. The CDC estimates that adult male smokers lose an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lose 14.5 years of life because of smoking. And given the diseases that smoking can cause, it can steal your quality of life long before you die.^[Department of Health and Human Services. "Annual Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lost, and Economic Costs --- United States, 1995--1999." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5114a2.htm.]
6. In 2012, 18.1% of Americans, 18 and older, were current smokers.^[Department of Health and Human Services. "Adult Cigarette Smoking in the United States: Current Estimates." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed February 18, 2014, http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/.]
7. A single cigarette contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer. Secondhand smoke contains over 7,000 chemicals, including 70 cancer-causing chemicals.^[U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease: A Report of the Surgeon General.” Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2010. Accessed February 19, 2014.]
8. In 2013, states will collect $25.7 billion from tobacco taxes and legal settlements but are spending less than 2 percent of that on tobacco control programs.^[Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. "1998 Tobacco Settlement: Decade of Broken Promises." Accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what_we_do/state_local/tobacco_settlement/.]
9. Investing 15 percent ($3.7 billion) of the $25.7 billion it would fund every state tobacco control program at CDC-recommended levels.^[U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.. "Fast Facts." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed February 18, 2014, http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/.]
10. Every year, there are approximately 46,000 deaths from heart disease in people who are current non-smokers.^[California Environmental Protection Agency. "Proposed Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant." Accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/ets2006/app3exe.pdf.]
11. Smoking increases your risk of getting lung diseases like pneumonia, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.^[U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress. A Report of the Surgeon General”. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014. Printed with corrections, January 2014. Accessed February 19, 2014.]