Smoking Facts

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer.

Quitting smoking cuts the risk of lung cancer, many other cancers, heart disease, stroke, other lung diseases, and other respiratory illnesses.

Among infants to 18 months of age, secondhand smoke is associated with 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia each year.

About 8.6 million people in the U.S. have at least one serious illness caused by smoking.

Secondhand smoke is classified by the EPA as a known human carcinogen.

In 1908 a law was passed in New York City making it illegal for women to smoke in public.

Smoking is a major factor in coronary heart disease and stroke.

Smoking is responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths.

When inhaled in cigarette smoke nicotine reaches the brain faster than drugs that enter the body intravenously.

If both parents smoke, a teenager is more than twice as likely to smoke than a child whose parents are both non-smokers.

In 17th-century Massachusetts, smoking was legal only at a distance of five miles from any town.

President Lyndon Johnson used to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day.

Pregnant women who smoke are more likely to deliver underweight babies.

A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day will on average lose two teeth every ten years.

Smokers are likely to die on average six and a half years earlier than non-smokers.

People that smoke have 10 times as many wrinkles as a person that does not smoke.

Three years after a person quits smoking, their chance of having a heart attack falls substantially.

Studies show that couples that smoke during the time of conception have a higher chance of having a girl.

The Cree Indians used smoking pipes as currency.

The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

Smoking in pregnancy accounts for an estimated 20 to 30 percent of low-birth weight babies.

As smoking declines among the White non-Hispanic population, tobacco companies have targeted both African Americans and Hispanics with intensive advertising.

When Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco into England in the early 1600s, King James argued against its use.

More than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. each year are from smoking-related illnesses.

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