Tobacco Trivia: 10 quick facts about smoking!

Smoking is a practice in which a substance is burned and the resulting smoke breathed in to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream. Most commonly the substance is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant which have been rolled into a small square of rice paper to create a small, round cylinder called a “cigarette”. Check out some pretty messud up facts!

1. Each cigarette reduces your life by about 8 to 11 minutes.

2. Cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer.

3. Some of those chemicals are:

Arsenic – used in rat poison;
Lung with emphysema, caused by smoking Photo credit: Yale Rosen
Lung with emphysema, caused by smoking
Formaldehyde – embalming fluid;
Tar – material for paving roads;
Nicotine – used as insecticide;
Cadmium – active component in battery acid.

4. Smokers die an average of 13 to 14 years earlier than non-smokers.

5. Cigarette smoking is responsible for more deaths each year than deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, car accidents, suicides, and murders combined.

6. Smoking causes more than just cancer.

7. It also causes:

erectile dysfunction;
infertility;
eye disease – leading to blindness;
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema);
coronary heart disease;
acute myeloid leukemia;
pneumonia.
different cancers, including bladder, esophageal, larynx, lung, mouth, throat, cervical, uterine, kidney, stomach, and pancreatic cancers.

8. Cigarettes are the single-most traded item on the planet, with approximately 1 trillion being sold from country to country each year. At a global take of more than $400 billion, it’s one of the world’s largest industries.

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9. The nicotine content in several major brands is reportedly on the rise. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Health Department revealed that between 1997 and 2005 the amount of nicotine in Camel, Newport, and Doral cigarettes may have increased by as much as 11 percent.

10. In 1970, President Nixon signed the law that placed warning labels on cigarettes and banned television advertisements for cigarettes. The last date that cigarette ads were permitted on TV was extended by a day, from December 31, 1970 to January 1, 1971 to allow the television networks one last cash windfall from cigarette advertising in the New Year’s Day football games.