TOBACCO FACTS. IS IT REALLY WORTH IT???

WHAT DO THEY DO, AND HOW THEY ARE ADDICTING. Brain. * Nicotine, the drug that makes tobacco addictive, goes to your brain very quickly. * Nicotine makes you feel good when you are smoking, but it can make you anxious, nervous, moody, and depressed after you smoke. Mouth. * Tobacco stains your teeth and gives you bad breath. * Tobacco ruins some of your taste buds, so you won't be able to taste your favorite foods as well. * Tobacco causes bleeding gums (gum disease) and cancers of the mouth and throat. Lungs * Smokers have trouble breathing because smoking damages the lungs. * If you have asthma, you can have more frequent and more serious attacks. * Tobacco can cause emphysema (lung disease) and lung cancer. Along with hundreds of other risks.

SECOND HAND SMOKING = HUGE PROBLEM The EPA reported the following about Secondhand smoke. 3,000 nonsmoking adults die of diseases caused by exposure to second hand smoke every year. Secondhand smoke causes coughing, phlegm, chest discomfort and reduced lung function in nonsmokers. US infants and children under 18 months of age suffer some 150,000 to 300,000 respiratory tract infections (lung diseases such as pneumonia and bronchitis) every year, leading to 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations. More than 10 million young people aged live in a household with at least one smoker. According to the EPA, approximately percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine, in their blood.

EFFECTING THE HEALTH TRIANGLE Physically it can give you serious cancer and oral problems. Mentally it will make you crave the nicotine and have the mind set that it is ruling your life. Socially you may lose the good friends and gain some unwanted ones, along with being excluded from countless activities.

EFFECTS ON US. Each day 3,000 children smoke their first cigarette. Tobacco use primarily begins in early adolescence, typically by age 16. Almost all first use occurs before high school graduation. 20 percent of American teens smoke. Roughly 6 million teens in the US today smoke despite the knowledge that it is addictive and leads to disease. Of every 100, year old smokers, tobacco will prematurely kill at least 20,000 before the age of 70. the 3,000 teens who started smoking today, 1,000 will eventually die as a result from smoking.

IT’LL COST YA!!! National Healthcare Cost$ · Nationally it costs $72.7 billion a year to treat smokers who suffer from smokingrelated diseases. · Smoking-related Medicaid costs amount to $12.9 billion per year. · Smokers are 29 percent more likely to have annual medical insurance claims over $5,000 than nonsmokers. · Smoking during pregnancy costs the country more than $3 billion a year The tobacco companies make billions of dollars on a product that causes considerable harm and expense to not only its customers, but also its non-customers. The research is clear: tobacco harms users and second-hand smoke harms non- smokers. As tobacco companies profit, others pay the price.

EFFECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT There are 1.1 billion smokers in the world today, and if current trends continue, that number is expected to increase to 1.6 billion by the year China is home to 300 million smokers who consume approximately 1.7 trillion cigarettes a year, or 3 million cigarettes a minute. Worldwide, approximately 10 million cigarettes are purchased a minute, 15 billion are sold each day, and upwards of 5 trillion are produced and used on an annual basis. Five trillion cigarette filters weigh approximately 2 billion pounds. It's estimated that trillions of filters, filled with toxic chemicals from tobacco smoke, make their way into our environment as discarded waste yearly. While they may look like white cotton, cigarette filters are made of very thin fibers of a plastic called cellulose acetate. A cigarette filter can take between 18 months and 10 years to decompose. In other words you aren't only killing yourself, but the environment as well.

SMOKELESS TOBACCO??? Yep…

RISKS AND STATS # Smokeless tobacco users increase risk for oral cavity cancer such as chick and gum. # Studies are underway for the possible increased risk of other cancers through smokeless tobacco. # Smokeless tobacco is not a safe substitute for smoking cigarettes. # Nicotine is the major ingredient in Smokeless tobacco products. # Experimentation with smokeless tobacco often leads to a pattern of regular use. # As it is for smoking tobacco, cessation for smokeless tobacco is hard. # Smokeless tobacco users who also use smoking tobacco find it very difficult to quit than those who use any one of them. Many of the products on the market have not been studied for ingredients and health effects.

JUST AS DANGEROUS Addiction The nicotine in ST is absorbed directly into the bloodstream and is addicting. Spit tobacco users have similar, or even higher, levels of nicotine than smoker who use a pack or more a day. ST is also associated with cancers of the esophagus, larynx, and stomach, and an increased risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases % of ST users exhibit leukoplakia in the area where the quid is held, usually within a few months of beginning regular use.

STILL THINKING ABOUT TRYING??? Don’t.