Smoking

Facts

From people who have done more research than anyone else

Tobacco use is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced.

Would you want to kiss this?

• Almost half of the world's children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke. There are 1.2 million deaths a year due to second-hand smoke exposure.
• Tobacco use kills 8 million people a year - an average of one person every four seconds.
• Tobacco kills up to half of all users.
• It's a risk factor for six of the eight leading causes of deaths in the world.

Because there's a lag of several years between when people start using tobacco and when their health suffers, the epidemic of disease and death has just begun.

• 100 million deaths were caused by tobacco in the 20^th century. If current trends continue, there will be up to one billion deaths in the 21^st century.
• Unchecked, tobacco-related deaths will increase to more than eight million a year by 2030.

Sources:  World Health Organization, and
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

Smoking kills

Every four seconds, somebody dies from tobacco. This page was opened 0 seconds ago therefore since the time you opened this page 0 people have died. This is not just a number - those were real people, who have really died, just now.

When those people smoked, they noticed the pleasurable effects caused by the smoke that triggered chemical reactions in nerve endings in the brain. What they didn't notice, until they were addicted to the nicotine, was the adverse effects on their health.

Any cancer can spread to the brain, and lung cancer is one of the most common.  The traditional treatment of whole brain radiotherapy has recently found to be of no benefit. 

Smoke not only contains several toxic compounds, but also the incomplete combustion produced by burning substance creates carbon monoxide and this impairs the ability of blood to transport oxygen.

The sooner you smoke, the sooner you croak.

Myths

Smoking is my God-given right

Maybe. But other people have a right to clean air.

Smokers generally don't care about the discomfort and danger to others. If smokers don't care about their own health, they can't be expected to care about the health of others.

Smokers have a right to damage their own health. They do not have a right to damage the health of others.

Smoking is cool

Maybe. But there are cooler ways to die than smoking.

And an aesthetic note for those wanting to avoid a sallow complexion and wrinkles, it has been shown that smoking increases melanin and decreases blood flow in the skin, leading to a dull complexion, and also increases winkles around mouth and eyes. 

Can anybody tell us why smoking isn't stupid?

Smoking makes you strong

Early tobacco adverts, like practically every other consumer product, showed strong, healthy, sexy people with a cigarette or pipe in their mouths.

A hundred years ago, general life expectancy was lower than it is today and the adverse health effects of smoking were less obvious. But now the dangers have been proved, governments are steadily moving towards an outright ban. First to go were the "Smoking makes you strong" subliminal advertising. This was followed by "Smoking kills" posters, and then the litigation against cigarette producers began.

But all of this is in the relatively small populations of affluent countries. Low GNI countries understandably give low priority to anti-smoking measures, particularly when tobacco industries pump so much money into their coffers.

Smoking makes you wealthy

Tobacco adverts in developing countries, like practically every other consumer product, show people smoking who not only look strong, healthy, sexy people, but also wealthy.

Smoking is a personal choice

No, it isn't.

I remember as a teenager there was peer pressure to join other school mates smoking, just as teenagers today are pressured by their friends to join them vaping. And this is, and for a long time has been, complemented by targeting by the industry.

Here are some secret internal documents which you're free to share:

• "We have been asked by our client to come up with a package design... a design that is attractive to kids... While this cigarette is geared to the youth market, no attempt (obvious) can be made to encourage persons under twenty-one to smoke. The package design should be geared to attract the youthful eye, not the ever-watchful eye of the Federal Government."
  13 August 1970 letter from Lorillard advertising account executive to a marketing professor, soliciting help from his students with advertising design. Bates No. 92352889
• "Our profile taken locally shows this brand [Newport] being purchased by black people (all ages), young adults (usually college age), but the base of our business is the high school student."
  30 August 1978 Lorillard memo from Achey to CEO Curtis Judge about the "fantastic success" of Newport. Bates No. TINY0003062
• "Today’s teenager is tomorrow’s potential regular customer and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while in their teens. ... the share index is highest in the youngest group for all Marlboro and Virginia Slims packings. At least a part of the success of Marlboro Red during its most rapid growth period was because it became the brand of choice among teenagers who then stuck with it as they grew older."
  31 March 1981 market research report on young smokers titled “Young Smokers Prevalence, Trends, Implications, and Related Demographic Trends," written by Philip Morris researcher Myron E Johnston and approved by Carolyn Levy and Harry Daniel. Bates No. 1000390803
• "The ability to attract new smokers and develop them into a young adult franchise is key to brand development."
  1999 Philip Morris report, "Five-Year Trends 1988-1992." Bates No. 2044895379-484

... and many more examples of industry marketing to kids, for both tobacco and e-cigarettes, at tobaccofreekids.org/facts_issues/fact_sheets/toll/tobacco_kids/marketing/.

Cigarette companies might say they don't want their customers to be young or become ill, but as with other industries, they exist to make a profit. That is their mandate and their obligation to investors. And they use whatever legal means at their disposal.

The problem is, smoking kills.

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