If the smoking ban hasn’t discouraged you from buying a pack, maybe the grim health consequences will.
According to the National Cancer Institute, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of premature and preventable deaths in the United States.
And, contrary to common belief, smoking doesn’t only harm your lungs: The esophagus, larynx, mouth, throat, kidneys, bladder, pancreas, stomach and cervix (yes, way down there) can also be affected.
Whenever you drag on a cigarette, smoke enters the lungs, killing the tiny air sacks, called alveoli, that transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood. Alveoli do not grow back. Smoke kills them and then they are gone forever.
But that’s not all. According to the Center for Young Women’s Health at the Children’s Hospital of Boston, the particles that veil the lungs, called cilia, that keep harmful agents away from the lungs, are also destroyed by smoke. In fact, once smoke enters the lungs, cilia are paralyzed and are unable to keep toxins and other harmful chemicals and particles out of there. In short, your lungs could become a sort of storage room for dust, pollen and other things you usually inhale while breathing.
Not only that, but cigarettes have very bad ingredients:
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*arsenic, which we all know is not a good thing to inhale;
*benzene, found in gasoline;
*hydrogen cyanide, generally used in making chemical weapons;
*ammonia;
*and toluene, a chemical found in paint thinners.
If saving yourself isn’t reason enough to quit, consider saving the people near you. Secondhand smoke causes cancer, too and is considered a “known human carcinogen” by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Toxicology Program.
The American Cancer Society says that each year, in the United States about 46,000 nonsmokers die from heart disease just for living with smokers. Pregnant women who are exposed to secondhand smoke are at risk of giving birth to underweight babies.
According to the state Department of Health, every year, 1,040 Virginians die because of second hand smoke. Furthermore, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids estimates that the state of Virginia spends $105.3 million per year on health care related to second hand smoke.
