Tobacco Fact Sheet 
 
 

Tobacco:    The #1 cause of preventable death in the USA

• Causes more deaths than alcohol, illegal Drugs, traffic accidents, fires, AIDS, all forms of air pollution, homicides, and suicides combined  (CDC)
• Kills 430,000 Americans each year (CDC)
• Every day more than 5,000 kids under 19 try smoking for the first time, and another 2,000 kids who have already experimented with cigarettes become new regular daily smokers (USDHHS, Summary Findings from the 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse)
• Smoking is responsible for 87% of lung cancer cases (Thun, M., “Mixed Progress Against Lung Cancer,” Tobacco Control 7:223-226 {1998})

Perspective:   In the USA, smoking is responsible for:

• One out of every five deaths (Nicotine and Tobacco Research)
• One third of all deaths under the age of 70 (Reuters 9/98)
• ~30% of all cancer deaths; 87% of lung cancers; and increases the chance of getting cancer (any type) by a factor of 2 (4 times if heavy smoker) (KickButt.org website, ACS) 
• 11.8% of total medical spending in 1993: ~$73 Billion a year was spent treating smokers who suffer from smoking-related diseases (Public Health Reports 9/98)
• The number of American teenagers taking up smoking as a daily habit jumped 73% between 1988-1996 (CDC-NY Times 10/98)
• 80-90% of adult daily smokers started before the age of 18; the average starting age is 13 years old (Growing Up Tobacco Free: Institute of Medicine – 94)
• Each day 6,000 American children try their first cigarette, 3,000 become daily smokers (~ 1.2 Million each year), and 2,000 will be smoking 10 years from now. (CDC-NY Times 10/98)
• Smoking before age 15 increases the risk of getting cancer by 10 times (CDC)
• 5.4 million children suffer annually from non-fatal asthma and ear infections as a result of parental smoking, requiring $4.6 billion in treatment each year (University of Wisconsin Study found in July 1997 edition of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine)
• An estimated 5 million young people, ages 0-17, who are alive today will die prematurely from a smoking-related illness (CDC, 1997)
• The tobacco industry pulls in $168 billion annually. That is more than the Gross National Product (GNP) of 180 of the world’s 205 countries (www.tobaccofacts.org)

Financial Costs of Tobacco in North Carolina (from Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids):

• Annual health care costs in North Carolina directly caused by smoking: $1.92 billion
• Portion covered by the state Medicaid program: $6 million
• Residents’ state & federal tax burden from smoking-caused government expenditures: $451.30 per household
• Smoking-caused productivity losses in North Carolina: $2.82 billion

Smoke Contains:

• Over 4000 chemicals, 47 of which have been shown to cause cancer. “The chemicals in tobacco are so toxic they are illegal to dump in a land fill” (CDC)
• Carbon Monoxide (CO): a colorless, odorless, highly poisonous gas.  Studies have also linked it to low birth weight and heart failure. Cigarette users inhale smoke containing four times the carbon monoxide found in car exhaust (The Baltimore Sun 7/00)
• Nicotine: an addicting stimulant Drug that alters the chemistry of the brain resulting in nervousness and anxiety when withdrawn.
• Cyanide: a deadly poison used in gas chambers
• Formaldehyde: used to preserve bodies
• Arsenic: a poison used on rats
• Methanol: wood alcohol, a poison
• Acetone: used in fingernail polish remover
• Benzene: a known cancer-causing chemical

Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS)

“Passive,” “involuntary,” or “second-hand” smoke is inhaled by people around smokers (e.g. spouses, restaurant workers, children, coworkers, etc.). It is a mixture of “mainstream”  (the smoke exhaled by the smoker accounting for 15% of ETS) and “sidestream” smoke (from the lit end of cigarette accounting for 85% of ETS and containing the same harmful chemicals which are unfiltered and formed at lower temperatures emitting even larger amounts of cancer causing substances).  
 

ETS:

• Each year secondhand smoke kills an estimated 3,000 adult nonsmokers from lung cancer (CDC)
• Results in 150,000 non-fatal heart attacks in non smokers and about 10 times more cardiovascular (heart attack, stroke, etc.) than cancer deaths (www.kickbutt.org)
• Causes 30 times more lung cancer deaths than all regulated air pollutants combined
• Increases the likelihood of exposed nonsmokers suffering a stroke by 82% (Tobacco Control, University of Auckland, NZ)
• Same harmful chemicals (some in higher concentration as it is unfiltered ie. “sidestream”).  It takes more than three hours to remove 95% of the smoke from one cigarette from the room once smoking has ended (St. Louis University Public Law Review, Vol 13:2)
• Non-smokers married to smokers are 30% more likely to develop lung cancer than if married to a non-smoker (Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 8/00)
• Restaurants that allow smoking can have 6 times the pollution of a busy highway (CDC)

(Compiled by Ken Shelton of Tobacco Free For Life of Hendersonville, NC.)

Question Why Youth Centers  Youth Empowerment for Tobacco Control