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While the percentage of smokers has dropped over the years, there are 53 million Americans over the age of seventeen who smoke cigarettes. And 9 out of 10 smokers report that they would like to quit. Private industry has strong incentives to encourage their employees to stop smoking. Smokers have a 22% higher rate of sickness and loss of job time and take 10% longer to recover from illness not even related to smoking. Also smokers are a great deal more susceptible to having industrial accidents. It has been estimated that the smoker costs the employer on the average, $4,500 a year. Tobacco is one of the most dangerous substances that can be taken into the human body. Over 200 known poisonous substances have been identified in tobacco smoke. Nicotine, arsenic, cyanide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and phenol are a few of the more commonly known ingredients. A two pack a day smoker shortens his or her life by eight years, and even light smokers, those who smoke one to nine cigarettes a day, shorten their life expectancy by approximately four years. Every smoker is injured to some degree with every cigarette he or she lights. A one pack a day smoker puts one quart of tobacco tar into his or her lungs every year. As the lungs are painted with this sticky tar, chemicals cause the lungs to become stiff and lose their elasticity, a condition known as emphysema. One of the most significant facts about emphysema is that it is irreversible and incurable. Once the lung tissue has lost its elasticity and the air sacs have been ruptured, the lungs’ function has been permanently destroyed. Lung cancer is the leading cause of all cancer deaths, and the vast majority of lung cancers are caused by cigarette smoking. The reason that lung cancer is particularly dangerous is because very early in its development, the cancer is prone to spread throughout the bloodstream to other organs in the body. By the time the cancer is found, it has often spread to the liver, brain and bones. The particularly sad fact is that the primary treatment of lung cancer is surgical removal with only about a 10 percent cure rate. The key treatment of lung cancer lies in the prevention of the cancer through the elimination of smoking. Strokes
are a common cause of death in patients having a combination of
uncontrolled high blood pressure and a history of cigarette smoking. |