Hazard of Smoking to the Individual, Family & Environment

Smoking is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Smoking still remains one of the leading cause of preventable death. Smoking has the dubious distinction of affecting all the systems from head to foot. Citizens of western countries no longer regard smoking as a good option to relieve their stress. Numerous universities worldwide do not allow their students to smoke in the campus.

General facts about smoking:

• About 111, 000 people die every year due to smoking or passive smoking.
• One person dies every 5 minutes from smoking related diseases.
• The NHS spend over four hundreds million pounds each year on treating smoking related illness.
• Cigarettes and other smoking materials are a very common cause of fires.
• Smoking materials account for almost 240 deaths every year.
• Out of 6, 600 fires 40% are cause by smokers- thats 2, 640 fires!

How smoking ruin the body:

• Heart disease- nicotine raises blood pressure making the heart work harder therefore it need more oxygen which is cut down from carbon monoxide from getting to the heart. This cause severe heart attacks. 
• Lung cancer- this start with the smokers cough producing lots of phlegm. Chest infection and bronchitis begins causing the lungs to be destroyed.

How does smoking affect non-smokers:

• Non smokers can suffer from passive smoking.
• Non smokers can suffer from sore eyes, sneezing, runny nose, headaches, coughing, wheezing and hoarseness all due to other people's smokes
• Children of smokers have a very high risk of getting bronchitis, pneumonia and other chest infections.
• Asthmatic have a high risk of getting attacks due to other people's smoke.
• Non smokers have a high risk of getting lung cancer due to other people's smoke.

How the environment affect the environment:

• Each cigarette manufacturing machines uses 4 miles of paper per hour which could be used instead for many other important things.
• Tobacco is the most widely grown non-food crop in 120 countries therefore less land is available for food crop. Between 10 to 20 million people could be fed if food crop was grown in its place.
• Burning tobacco is the main source of indoor pollution in the developed world as it contains over 4,000 dangerous chemicals.
• One whole tree is needed to cure the tobacco for 300 cigarettes.
• Cigarette smoke generates contains two of the main gases related to the greenhouse effect they are carbon dioxide and methane.
• If  smoker smoked a packet of cigarettes a day, the habits would cost around $1800 per year. Wouldn't they rather do something fun or beneficial with that money, like donate to the orphan.
• A broken leg of a smoker takes 80% longer to heal than a nonsmoker (276 days compared to 146).
• Secondhand smoke cause 3,000 causes of lung cancer in nonsmokers each year.