|  Sources

Sobering Facts

• One in five deaths each year is caused by prolonged smoking.
  
• Smoking and secondhand smoke kill more people than AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides and fires combined.
  
• One in three adolescents/young adults who are "just experimenting" end up being addicted by the time they are 20 years old.
  
• Every cigarette you smoke takes away seven minutes of your life.
  
• Cigarettes contain over 4,000 chemicals and 2,000 poisons, including toxins found in nail polish remover, rat poisoning, battery acid, insecticides and rocket fuel.
  
• Underage smoking (under age 18) is not only unhealthy, it is illegal! If caught, you will pay a heavy fine- or worse.
  
• Nicotine, the main chemical in tobacco, is highly addictive; it is just as addictive as heroine or cocaine.

Related Information

• What is tobacco?
• What are the risks?
• Quittsville...Get Out Before It's Too Late
• Tips for Quitting

Back to top

Sources

Below are links PAMF accessed when researching this topic. PAMF, however, does not sponsor or endorse any of these sites, nor does PAMF guarantee the accuracy of the information contained on them.

Health Promotion Services, Vaden Health Center, Stanford University. What is Tobacco? Accessed February 2004.

Centers for Disease Control TIPS (Tobacco Information and Prevention Sources) TIPS4Youth.


Last reviewed January 2008

More information on teens and tobacco

Interactive Health Tools:

• How Does Smoking Increase Your Risk of Heart Attack?
  
• How Much Is Smoking Costing You?

Back to top