The other day a friend of mine was on his way back from the CMA Music Awards and out of nowhere he was rear-ended. What does this have to do with smoking? Well, the person driving was not paying attention because she was attempting to light her cigarette. She was young, teenager or young adult, which makes me question even more why do people smoke. It isn’t a secret that smoking cigarettes is expensive. Cigarettes make you and everything around you stink, they damage your skin and, worst of all, they can kill you. Even though we ALL know these facts to be true, as studies have shown, people still smoke cigarettes. Why? What is positive about smoking cigarettes? I know there are older people who started smoking long before they knew it was bad for your health, although many of them are likely deceased, and they have been addicted for years. The question is, why, with knowing what we know, would anyone start smoking cigarettes today or even in the last 20 years?

According to http://www.BeTobaccoFree.gov, there are many different ways smoking can affect one’s health. Smoking is one of the main causes of lung cancer and it is the leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the U.S. Along with lung cancer, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), tuberculosis, cancers of the throat, mouth, esophagus, stomach, nasal cavity as well as acute myeloid leukemia are other diseases caused by smoking. With further research I did, smoking can further affect those with prostate cancer giving them a higher chance of dying from the disease than those who don’t smoke. Not only this but 18 million males over the age of 20 who smoke suffer from erectile dysfunction (ED). ED occurs in smokers because cigarette modifies the blood flow necessary for erections. Yikes! Women who smoke are also up to 40 times more likely to develop COPD. Also, according to http://www.BeTobaccoFree.gov, 5.6 million children alive today will die 13 to 14 years early if they smoke. This is equal to 1 out of every 13 children!

Switching gears, let’s talk about secondhand smoke. Most states in the U.S. have banned smoking in public places due to the effects of secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke is a silent killer. One can still be diagnosed with the same illnesses mentioned earlier, even if they do not smoke but are only breathing in someone else’s smoke. More than 30,000 nonsmokers die every year from coronary heart disease due to exposure to secondhand smoke and the risk of lung disease is increased by 20-30%. (It infuriates me to see people smoking in a car with children in the backseat, or anywhere near children for that matter, but that’s another article for another time.) So, with all the negative information and deadly statistics readily available to all and even printed on the cigarettes cartons, why would anyone smoke? It kills those who smoke and even those who don’t! What’s up with that?