Smoking and Tobacco Facts
The article Smoking and Tobacco from the CDC provides many fast facts on smoking and information that everybody should be aware of. This article has showed me the total amount of people in the United States that are currently smoking. I learned from this article that a huge part of our population are current smokers and how the industry of cigarettes and other forms of smoking is booming.
The first topic the article talks about is diseases death due to smoking. Smoking and leads to disease and disability as well as harms every organ in the body. More than 16 million Americans are living with a disease that is caused by smoking. These diseases include cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Many people that smoke don't know that impact that one little cigarette has on your body and how much damage it can do to your organs and overall health. Smoking is also the leading cause for preventable death in the United States. Cigarette smoking is causes more than 480,000 deaths every year. This includes 42,000 deaths resulting from second hand smoke exposure. It is said to be 5 deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths daily. Current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths by the year 2030. Smoking is beginning to make a huge impact on young people. Many more younger age people are starting to use tobacco. This could be for a number of reasons. If smoking continues at a current rate of young people 5.6 million are expected to die prematurely from a smoking related disease.
This article also showed the reader on how much we spend on this habit and how the industry is booming. The tobacco industry spends billions dollars each year on cigarette advertising and promotions. In 2012 $9.17 billion was spent on advertising and promotions of cigarettes. That is more than $25 million a day or more than $ 1 million every hour. In order to reduce the price of cigarettes to consumers there are discounts paid to cigarette retailers or wholesalers. Price discounts count for 85% of all cigarette marketing. Along with this smoking costs United States billion dollars every year. The total cost is more than 300 billion a year. This includes $170 billion in medical care for adults as well as $156 billion in lost productivity due to premature death and second hand smoke. One thing that I thought was interesting was the states spending on tobacco prevention and control does not meet CDC recommended levels. States have billion of dollars from tobacco taxes and industry legal settlements to prevent tobacco use. However many of the states are refusing to use these funds for tobacco prevention programs. As of right now only 1 state, North Dakota, is supporting the funds for tobacco prevention programs under CDC recommended levels.
The last topic this article discussed was the amount of cigarette smokers in the United States. As of 2014, 16.8% of adults (40 million people) were current smokers. The highest ethnicity using cigarettes was non- Hispanic American Indian Alaskan natives (). Every day more and more people start smoking. More than 3,200 people younger than 18 years of age smoke their first cigarette. Along with this 2,100 youth and young adults who have been occasional smokers began to smoke every day.
I believe this article from CDC did a great job at providing the most important facts about smoking that people need to know. This article is great way to learn a little more about smoking and how much it effects us as people and economically. It provides us with information that we can take to heart and maybe try and make a difference in ourselves or people that we know who are current smokers. I hope from this article you can take away something and use it somehow in your every day.
References:
Fast Facts. (2015). Retrieved February 21, 2016, from http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm#toll
I liked how you included a picture in your post. I also didn't know that so many people were affected by smoking. 16 million people is a huge number. It's also sad how so many people die from the effects of second-hand smoking. My old high school teacher use to prevent smoking, although it's wrong, because it helps decrease taxes on things or something like that. You did a good job of summarizing the article, and I thought it was a really informative article.
ReplyDeleteTo find out that there are over 16 billion people with smoking problems or diseases is crazy. It really makes me think why people would still continue to do it if all its going to do is kill you or harm your body. From smoking less it will help you stop and prevent medical problems or bills.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article. The facts in here are enough to scare someone out of smoking. If people realized how absolutely terrible it is for them, I feel like some would stop. There are too many teenagers smoking because they think it is cool. They are too young to realize the consequences, and by the time they do they are addicted and it is to hard to stop. It is absolutely amazing how much is spent promoting such a bad habit. I can seen some stop smoking ads, but not nearly as much as the promotion signs. I really hope we figure out a way to solve this problem because it is causing so many unneeded and preventable illnesses/diseases.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job with providing a lot of information about this topic. Trying to get my boyfriend to quit smoking has been very difficult when he is surrounded by family who smokes and sees me as the outsider with a disgust for smoking. He has become so much healthier sine cutting back, i just wish he had enough will power to quit it entirely.
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