Costs
- Buying smokes is expensive. Over a year, it adds up to thousands of dollars. What would you rather spend that money on? Clothes? CDs? Movies? A car?
- There are many costs associated with tobacco use: personal health, medical care, fire damage, and decreased employee productivity are just a few.
- $4.4 billion is spent each year on health care for smoking-related illnesses in Canada.
- The costs of tobacco use to the user and to society are much higher than the money collected from tobacco sales.
- In Canada, over 47,000 people die each year from smoking. An estimated 3,400 of them are Albertans.
Addictiveness
- The nicotine in all types of tobacco is addictive.
- The younger a person is when they start smoking, the tougher it is for them to quit.
- Many people who used to have a drug addiction say quitting smoking is as hard as quitting heroin or cocaine.
- 40% of smokers who have had their voice box removed because of cancer continue to smoke.
- 75% of smokers who quit smoking go back to smoking within six months.
- Most kids who smoke think about quitting. Why start?
Second-hand smoke
- Second-hand smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals; approximately 50 of them are known to cause cancer.
- Children who are exposed to second-hand smoke are more likely to have middle ear disease, wheezing, coughing, asthma, tonsillitis, bronchitis and pneumonia.
- About 3,470 non-smokers die each year from heart disease caused by second-hand smoke in Canada.
- About 347 non-smokers die each year from lung cancer caused by second-hand smoke in Canada.
- Breathing second-hand smoke causes a non-smoker’s heart rate and blood pressure to rise.
Quitting
The benefits of quitting are immediate and long-term.
Within 8 hours
Eight hours after your last cigarette, carbon monoxide in your body decreases and the level of oxygen increases.
Within 48 hours
Your sense of smell and taste will start to improve.
Your chance of having a heart attack starts to decrease.
Within 72 hours
Within three days of quitting, your bronchial tubes start to relax, making breathing easier.
Your lung capacity increases.
Within 2 weeks
Two weeks after your last cigarette, your body circulation begins to improve and your lung functioning increases by up to 30%.
Within 6 months
The health of your lungs will improve. You experience less coughing, wheezing, congestion and shortness of breath.
Your chance of developing an infection goes down.
Within 1 to 10 years
A year after your last cigarette, your chance of having a smoking-related heart attack is cut in half. Within 10 years, your risk of dying from lung cancer is also cut in half!
AADAC Youth Services can be found in communities and schools across Alberta.
For more information, contact your local AADAC office or call the AADAC Smokers’ Help Line at 1-866-33AADAC. We are available to give you information and support.
