The Danger Of Smoking

Archive for the ‘Teen Smoking’ Category

Each day 3,000 children smoke their first cigarette.

At least 3 million adolescents are smokers.

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 100,000 15 year old smokers, tobacco will prematurely kill at least 20,000 before the age of 70.

Of the 3,000 teens who started smoking today, nearly 1,000 will eventually die as a result from smoking.

Adolescent girls who smoke and take oral birth control pills greatly increase their chances of having blood clots and strokes.

According to the Surgeon’s General, Teenagers who smoke were:

• Three times more likely to use alcohol.
• Eight times are likely to smoke marijuana.
• And 22 times more likely to use Cocaine.

Although only 5 percent of high school smokers said that they would definitely be smoking five years later, close to 75 percent were still smoking 7 to 9 years later.

A person who starts smoking at age 13 will have a more difficult time quitting, has more health-related problems and probably will die earlier than a person who begins to smoke at age 21.

Kids who smoke experience changes in the lungs and reduced lung growth, and they risk not achieving normal lung function as an adult.

Kids who smoke have significant health problems, including cough and phlegm production, decreased physical fitness and unfavorable lipid profile.

If your child’s best friends smoke, then your youngster is 13 times more likely to smoke than if his or her friends did not smoke.

More than 90 percent of adult smokers started when they were teens.

Adolescents who have two parents who smoke are more than twice as likely as youth without smoking parents to become smokers.

A 2001 Survey found that 69.4 percent of teenage smokers reported never being asked for proof of age when buying cigarettes in a store. The same survey found that 62.4 percent were allowed to buy cigarettes even when the retailer was aware they were under eighteen.

Parents are the single biggest influence in their children’s lives. Use your voice and let your kids know that smoking is bad news. Your teens may seem to be tuning you out and accuse you of lecturing, but they are listening. Discuss the dangers of teen smoking with them early and often.

The smoking facts in this article have been compiled with teens in mind. Arm yourself with knowledge and information that will get your child’s attention.

The ingredients and additives in cigarettes when burned, create toxic, harmful chemical compounds. There are over 4000 chemicals in cigarette smoke, and more than 40 of them are known carcinogens.

Smokers inhale some pretty disgusting things with every puff:

* Tar Yes, the same thing they use to pave streets and driveways. Ever notice how smoker’s teeth are yellow? Tar is responsible for that.

* Hydrogen Cyanide This chemical is used to kill rats and it was used during WWII as a genocidal agent. Smokers inhale it with every puff.

* Benzene This chemical is used in manufacturing gasoline.

* Acetone It’s in nail polish remover and it’s in cigarettes.

* Formaldehyde This is what they use to preserve dead bodies. It’s also used as an industrial fungicide, is a disinfectant, and is used in glues and adhesives.

* Ammonia We use this chemical to clean our houses.

* Carbon Monoxide It’s in car exhaust, and it’s in cigarette smoke.

And of course, there is Nicotine, the drug responsible for an addiction that smokers spend years and years trying to break.

Secondhand Smoke Facts
Cigarette smoke is full of harmful chemicals. Breathing in secondhand smoke is harmful for smokers and nonsmokers alike. Smokers suffer a double dose though, increasing the destructive effects of secondhand smoke.

* Secondhand smoke kills about 3,000 nonsmokers each year from lung cancer.
* Secondhand smoke causes 30 times as many lung cancer deaths as all regulated pollutants combined.
* Secondhand smoke causes up to 300,000 lung infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis) in infants and young children each year.
* Secondhand smoke causes wheezing, coughing, colds, earaches, and asthma attacks.
* Secondhand smoke can produce six times the pollution of a busy highway when in a crowded restaurant.
* Secondhand smoke fills the air with many of the same poisons found in the air around toxic waste dumps.

Other facts about smoking:

* Every day in the United States alone, approximately 3,000 kids under the age of 18 start smoking.
* Every day 1,200 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses.
* Teen smokers get sick more often than teens who don’t smoke.
* Teen smokers have smaller lungs and weaker hearts than teens who don’t smoke.
* Teen smokers are more likely to use alcohol and other drugs.
* Addicted smokers tend to use more nicotine over time. The habit usually grows. What starts out as 5 or 10 cigarettes a day usually becomes a pack or two a day habit eventually.
* It is estimated that approximately 4.5 million adolescents in the United States are smokers.
* Spit tobacco, pipes and cigars are not safe alternatives to cigarettes. “Light” or “low-tar” cigarettes aren’t safe either.
* Those who start smoking young are more likely to have a long-term addiction to nicotine than people who start smoking later in life.
* Smoking-related illnesses claim more American lives than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide and illegal drugs combined.(1)
* People who smoke a pack a day die on average 7 years earlier than people who have never smoked.
* Smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States.(2)

Be proactive! Give your children a solid anti-smoking foundation that will help them resist outside influences encouraging them to smoke as they go through their formative years. It’s up to us as parents to do all that we can to protect our kids from the dangers that tobacco use presents. Education about nicotine addiction is the best place to start.

1. American Cancer Society, Cigarette Smoking, 2002
2. U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, Preventing Tobacco Use among Young People, A Report of the Surgeon General, 1994
Other facts and figures for this article obtained from: www.4women.gov and www.cdc.gov
Cigarette Ingredients

* Cigarette Ingredients – The List
* How Cigarette Smoking Harms People
* The Toxins in Cigarette Smoke

Teen Smoking

* Talking to Your Kids about Smoking
* The Scoop on Smoking
* Smoking – What the Warning Label Doesn’t Tell You

Help to Quit Smoking

* Quit Smoking 101 – A Free Email Course
* Developing the Will to Quit Smoking
* Preparing for Your Quit Smoking Date

University College London, a new study had smoked a cigarette in children

Later, the possibility of starting the habit is never smoked, more than double for children.

According to the United Kingdom “Tobacco Management” magazine recently reported that this phenomenon against minors smoking study found that children after sucking a cigarette, the urge to smoke to hide more than three years, the researchers called “sleeping impact. ” Reported that 11 tried a cigarette at the age of the children in the age of 14 become smokers rate was 18%, compared to never smoked, the rate of children who later became smokers compared to 7%.

The researchers also said that cigarette smokers with nicotine may affect the brain, making it a craving for cigarettes. Another theory is that smoking may exceed the initial psychological barrier of children, smoking will no longer have to worry about, such as fear of parents discovery.