Influence of Tobacco Use
Tobacco use contributes to 440,000 deaths annually in the U.S. and is accompanied by $75 billion in medical expenses. It is the most preventable cause of disease and death in the country. 3,900 U.S. children ages 12–17 years old smoke their first cigarette every day. The Centers for Disease Control warns that “of all addictive behaviors, cigarette smoking is the one most likely to become established during adolescence”.
The effects of cigarettes on young people include respiratory and non-respiratory problems, nicotine addiction, and their potential as a “gateway drug.” Long term effects of tobacco use range from minor, treatable complications to death. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) agrees with the evidence: the most consistent finding, over decades of research, is the strong association between tobacco use and cancers of many sites. Specific to lung cancer, NCI reports that “rates in the United States have mirrored smoking patterns, with increases in smoking being followed by dramatic increases in lung cancer death rates and, more recently, decreases in smoking followed by decreased in lung cancer death rates in men”. Following current smoking trends, as many as 6.4 million of today’s youth could suffer smoking-related premature deaths.
Read more about this topic: Road Of Life: Cancer Prevention For Kids
Famous quotes containing the words influence of, influence and/or tobacco:
“The talk shows are stuffed full of sufferers who have regained their health—congressmen who suffered through a serious spell of boozing and skirt-chasing, White House aides who were stricken cruelly with overweening ambition, movie stars and baseball players who came down with acute cases of wanting to trash hotel rooms while under the influence of recreational drugs. Most of them have found God, or at least a publisher.”
—Calvin Trillin (b. 1935)
“Only let the North exert as much moral influence over the South, as the South has exerted demoralizing influence over the North, and slavery would die amid the flame of Christian remonstrance, and faithful rebuke, and holy indignation.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
“The puritanical potentialities of science have never been forecast. If it evolves a body of organized rites, and is established as a religion, hierarchically organized, things more than anything else will be done in the name of “decency.” The coarse fumes of tobacco and liquors, the consequent tainting of the breath and staining of white fingers and teeth, which is so offensive to many women, will be the first things attended to.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)