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Smoking should be a
parent’s greatest concern because it’s associated with other risky
behaviors and health dangers.
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Teens who smoke are more than twice as likely to have
suffered from symptoms of depression over the course of
a year.
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Teens who smoke are 13 times more likely to use
marijuana than nonsmoking teens.
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Children who start smoking before age 13 are three
times as likely to binge drink, 15 times as likely
to use marijuana, and seven times more likely to use
other illegal drugs such as heroin or cocaine.
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Preventing
kids from smoking through
high school
doubles the chances they won't smoke as adults.
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Every day,
in the U.S.A. alone,
nearly 4,400 kids
as young as 8 years old, start smoking!
That's over 1.5 million every year!
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Brain imaging studies indicate that nicotine has a
more profound effect on young brains than on the
brains of adults, increasing their vulnerability to
cigarettes and possibly other addictive substances.
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More
than 6.4 million children living today will die prematurely because of
a decision they will make as adolescents – the decision to smoke cigarettes.
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Smoking rate among high school
students remains constant. Nearly one in four high school students were smokers last year, a
rate that has not budged in several years. The CDC's National Youth Risk Behavior Surveys said last year's
figure of 23 percent is the most current available.
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1 in 4, or
nearly 50 million, Americans smoke endangering
their health and the wellbeing of their loved ones
around them.
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Every day, 32 million American smokers desperately want
to quit and need help and effective ways to quit and
stay quit.
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1 in 5, or
nearly 1.3 billion, people worldwide smoke endangering
their health and the wellbeing of their loved ones
around them.
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Researchers
at the Harvard School of Public Health have
confirmed that nicotine
levels in cigarettes increased from 1997 until 2005.
The higher
nicotine levels made it easier to get hooked on
cigarettes and harder to quit.
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Every year,
in the USA alone, the tobacco industry spends over $15.4
billion
($42+ million a
day)
marketing their deadly products, with most of
them reaching children. So far this century they have
spent over $118 billion and counting.
