In the United States about 42.1 million, or 18.1% of all adults smoke cigarettes. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the US. Over 16 million people suffer from a form of a disease related to smoking. 15% of women are smokers and about 20% are men. In 2012, if a person were to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day that costs around $14.50 for 20 cigarettes, this means that that smoker could spend around $5,000 a year just to smoke. How can a person even afford to smoke that much? That is ridiculous that a person will spend $5,000 a year on something that harms themselves and their body. Besides spending an extreme amount of money on cigarettes there are also many harmful side effects.
Smoking does disgusting things to your body. It stains your teeth to be a gross yellow color and sometimes they even rot. Smoking turns your fingers yellow, harms your skin, it can lead to premature aging and many wrinkles, along with weakening your immune system, and gum infections. Every time a person smokes their lungs are becoming inflamed and damaged. The worst thing that can come out of smoking is lung cancer. When a person smokes it is irritating their skin, if they were to do this many times a day their skin would never have the chance to heal properly and would just stay like that. Around your organs you have a lining of cells that is similar to your skin, smoking can inflame these cells and when a person continues to do it it doesn’t have a chance to heal just like the skin on your body. This leaves diseases easier to get into your body, and in your immune system.
If a person is under the age of 20 their lungs are still growing, by smoking when you’re that young it is putting a stunt on the growth of your lungs. If young adults, or teenagers smoke frequently and their lungs never get the chance to grow to their full potential, this can mean they may never be able to perform at their full capacity.
According to The Real Cost people who are frequent smokers on average die 10 years earlier than the non-smoker. So why would a person do this to themselves? If by picking up a cigarette knowing you were shortening your life by 10 years would a person do this to themselves? Do they want to die earlier than most people? Do they want to get cancer?
Another big problem is secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals, hundreds of them are toxic and about seventy of them can cause cancer. According to the CDC, since 1964 about 2.5 million adults who are non-smokers died because they inhaled smoke from someone else, frequently. This is a big thing that makes me so upset. You are already pretty much killing yourself so if you’re going to do at least take yourself away from people you care about. An even bigger thing that makes me even more mad is smoking around children. YOU ARE KILLING THEM. Why would you do that to your kids? Secondhand smoke causes tons of health problems in infants and children, including asthma attacks, respiratory infections, ear infections, and sudden infant death syndrome. If you want to potentially kill yourself from smoking go for it, but if your putting little kids or infants at risk for health problems and smoking right in front of them you need to see a counselor, because there is no excuse to do this to your children. In my opinion people who do this don’t care about their kids in any way. So please if you’re going to smoke just think about who you’re around and what you’re doing to yourself.
Nearly New News 