Get Smart
- Every day, an estimated 1,315 people in the United States die because of smoking. For each of those deaths, at least two youth or young adults become regular smokers each day. 3
- Of every three young smokers, only one will quit, and one of those remaining smokers will die from tobacco-related causes.
- Young people rarely consider the long-term health consequences associated with tobacco use when they start.
- Because of nicotine, a highly addictive drug, three out of four youth continue using tobacco well into adulthood, often with serious and even deadly consequences.
- Adolescents’ bodies are more sensitive to nicotine, and adolescents are more easily addicted than adults. 4
- If current smoking rates continue, 5.6 million U.S. children alive today who are younger than 18 years of age will die prematurely as a result of smoking. 5
- Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of premature disease and death in the U.S.
- Tobacco has killed more than 20 million people prematurely since the first Surgeon General’s report in 1964.
- Secondhand smoke (SHS) is also a serious problem. It contains a deadly mix of more than 7,000 chemicals, hundreds of which are toxic and at least 80 known to cause cancer. 6
- Breathing SHS increases a child’s risk of lung problems, ear infections, and severe asthma.
- SHS can trigger an asthma attack. A severe asthma attack can put a child’s life in danger. 7
- There is no risk-free level of exposure to SHS. Breathing even a little SHS can be dangerous. 8
- Since 1964, 2.5 million nonsmokers in the U.S. have died because of SHS exposure. 9
- Each year, exposure to SHS causes nearly 50,000 premature deaths among U.S. nonsmokers.
Coach Phillips and the LMAS Committee