indiacancer.org - Tobacco and Cancer

Children and tobacco use.

	Every day, more than 3,000 youngsters smoke their first cigarette, the first step to become regular smokers by the time they reach adulthood. One third of these new smokers will finally die of Tobacco- related diseases. Forty percent of teenagers who smoke daily have tried to quit and have failed. Smoking is a "pediatric disease" or a "Disease of the young". Eighty-nine percent of all people, who ever try a cigarette, try before they are 20, 71% were smoking daily by age 18. Ninety percent of new smokers are children and teens. These "new" smokers "replace" the smokers who quit or die prematurely from smoking-related diseases. Youth are encouraged to start smoking by friends and role models in the family who smoke, tobacco advertising and promotion, and the easy availability of tobacco. Nicotine is addictive; in fact, the risk of becoming addicted to nicotine is between one in three and one in two. The risk of becoming dependent on cocaine used intravenously is one in four. More than 80% of young people who smoke one pack or more of cigarettes a day report that they "need" or are dependent on cigarettes. Among addictive behaviors, cigarette smoking is the one most likely to take hold during adolescence. Virtually no one starts smoking during adulthood:
		Forty-two percent of young people who smoke as few as three cigarettes go on to become regular smokers.
		Seventy percent of adolescent smokers say they would not have started if they could choose again.
	Lung cancer has surpassed coronary heart disease as the leading cause of smoking-related premature death among middle class smoker.
	Tobacco is responsible for nearly one in every five deaths in the United States.
	Active smoking is the largest cause of preventable death eventually killing one of every two people who continue to smoke.
	Only about half of all students believe that smokers run a greater risk of harming themselves by smoking a pack or more daily.
	In the last two decades, the prevalence of smoking among adults has declined fairly steadily.
	Recent data suggests that prevalence is increasing among eighth and tenth grade students.
	More than 400,000 people die every year from smoking-related diseases. That's more than from alcohol, heroin, murder, suicide, car accident and AIDS combined.