Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the US, according to 2014 findings. Each year in the US, an estimated 480,000 preventable deaths — about one out of every five deaths — are the result of diseases caused by the use of tobacco. About 40,000 of these deaths are from conditions related to secondhand smoke. Research has shown that smoking takes an average of 10 years off a person’s life. Tobacco use has been found to increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic respiratory disease.
More about tobacco use in the US:
- More than 15% of the adult population in the US smoke cigarettes, which equates to more than 40 million people.
- Every day in the US, more than 3,000 people less than 18 years old smoke a cigarette for the first time.
- Tobacco use is estimated to cost the US more than $290 billion US Dollars (USD) as a result of medical care and lost productivity.
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More Info: cdc.gov
Discussion Comments
It breaks my heart to see kids smoking today. As a teacher I tell the kids all the time not to smoke! We all smoked because we didn't know any better.
I grew up during the time the tobacco industry was still lying to us. I stopped smoking 17 years ago. I have asthma. My sister stopped smoking for 12 years and died at the age of 59 from lung cancer. My father had a five-way bypass and my mother died from emphysema, stroke and, unable to continue using Coumadin because she started to bleed internally, she also had a pacemaker. They smoked Camels.
And why is it that the poorest people in our society constitute the largest segment of the population who smoke?
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