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Why Is it Important to Stop Smoking?

Government buildings, most workplaces, and even many bars are smokeless. And there's a reason. Secondhand smoke---smoke blown out and lingering in your area---can harm your health, even if you're not a smoker. But what does it matter if you smoke yourself, by yourself?

  1. Take Legality

    • It's illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 because cigarettes are addictive. Nicotine and certain additives in cigarettes create a dependency that's hard to shake: all the "stop smoking" patches and products give the best clue to their hold on you.

    Increase in Mortality

    • According to the American Cancer Society and the United States Surgeon General, tobacco use results in 1 in 5 deaths and is the chief cause of cancer mortality. It is estimated that half of all Americans who continue to smoke will die from smoke-related illness.

    Diseases Common to Smokers

    • Along with lung cancer, (the deadliest of cancers), which accounts for a whopping 87 percent of all smoking cancer deaths, you can also get cancer of the mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus (your swallowing tube,) and the bladder.

      Other cancers common to smoking take root in the stomach, kidneys, cervix and pancreas. If those don't scare you, add in cardiovascular disease, which is the narrowing and hardening of the arteries that lead to the heart, and chronic pulmonary disease, which cuts off your air supply, making it hard to breathe. Even so-called "casual smokers" develop chronic coughs and bronchitis---inflammation of the air passages in the lungs---and emphysema, a disorder that kills the air sacs in your lungs.

    Other Diseases

    • Since tobacco restricts blood flow, the arms and legs don't get the air and nutrients it needs through the blood vessels. Male smokers are likely to get erectile dysfunction and develop sexual impotence. Women who smoke can damage their reproductive organs and reduce their fertility or possibly face a miscarriage, stillbirth, or low birth-weight babies.

      The connection between gum disease, peptic ulcers, bone thinning and macular degeneration, an eye affliction that causes blindness, is indicated too. Some doctors won't even operate on smokers, and if you get a simple illness, it's harder to recover.

    Cosmetic Reasons

    • We all want to appeal to others, but cigarette smoking stains teeth and fingers, and leaves its odor on everything, including bad breath. For women especially, smoking helps to cement those little lines that form around the lips and up to the nose. And who isn't repelled by smokers' cough?

    Aesthetics

    • How about the refuse that cigarettes create? Filthy ashtrays, cigarette butts that don't biodegrade; and all that litter outside buildings, in parking lots, and in the trash--yuck!

    Costs

    • Feeding a smoking addiction generates staggering costs. With per-pack prices reaching $5 and more in some states, a fairly mild one-pack-a-day addiction can cost more than $1,800 a year to maintain.

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