Smoking Kills
Smoking kills
over 430,000 smokers (equivalent to one Oakland, CA)
and
over
53,000 non-smokers (equivalent to almost one entire Vietnam War for
Americans)
in the US each year, with millions more
dying around the world.
Smoking is a
weapon of mass destruction and is one
of our
worst public health threats.
“Tobacco use, particularly
smoking, remains the number one cause of preventable
disease and death in the United States.”
Source:
Reducing Tobacco Use: A Report of the
Surgeon General
[Summary]
“Cigarettes
kill more Americans than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, murders, suicides,
drugs and fires combined.”
Source:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office on
Smoking and Health
“Anyone who
smokes is committing suicide slowly, one
cigarette after the other.”
Source:
Menachem Slae,
Smoking and Damage to Health in the Halachah
Cancerettes
kill
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Smoking Injures
Besides the smoker, who
on average dies 13 years earlier, smoking hurts and kills
the
friends and families of the smoker the
most, including kids and pets, through
second
hand smoke. While claiming to love,
smokers are spewing hate every time
they
light up.
Smoking is associated
with:
Smoking afflicts both
smokers and their loved ones.
Additionally,
“cigarette filters have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales”
and others, injuring and killing vast numbers of animals.
“Smoking causes disease in
nearly every organ in the body at every stage of life."
Source:
U.S. Surgeon General’s Annual Report on Smoking
“There is no such thing as a
safe tobacco product.”
Source:
American Cancer Society
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Smoking Pollutes
Smoking
emits carbon, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and
methane,
among other gases, contributing to
global warming. The smoking industry’s use of certain
pesticides also
contributes to the destruction of the Earth’s ozone layer, resulting in
increased radiation exposure and therefore grave “health problems such as
skin cancer,
eye cataracts and suppression of the immune system”.
The 450
pesticides and herbicides approved for use on tobacco not only adversely
affect farm workers and their families, but
spray-drift and run-off of these dangerous
chemicals pose
serious risks to the environment,
poisoning our air, water, and the
people and animals that depend on them.
“Cigarette and cigar making
produces large quantities of waste in the form of
tobacco slurries,
solvents, oils and greases, paper, wood, plastics, packaging
materials and
airborne pollution - as well as toxic chemical waste.... From growing
the
tobacco plant to disposal of butts and packaging, the whole life cycle of a
cigarette takes a heavy toll on the environment.”
Source:
ASH,
“The
Environmental Impacts of Tobacco”
Smoking=Pollution
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Smoking Deforests
The process of making
cigarettes requires a lot of (non-renewable fossil) fuel, including
coal, oil, and wood, leading to the
depletion of woodlands and forests, especially in
poorer
countries. This is a critical problem, particularly in China, Brazil, India,
and
throughout Africa. Tobacco kills forests.
“Once forest is cleared, soil erosion and flooding can result, thus damaging
nearby
agricultural land.... Once soil fertility is
lost, tobacco companies may simply move on
to new growing areas” ,
abandoning communities with the same lack of concern as
when they exploit
and poison them. The tobacco industry also reduces precious
biodiversity, substituting it “with largely monoculture plantations of
non-indigenous
species”, causing untold and irreparable harm to ecosystems
and their inhabitants,
here and abroad.
“Every year, thousands of
acres of forests are cut down to make room for new
tobacco plantations
and
to provide fuel to cure (dry) the tobacco.”
Source:
Brazil Case Study
We all
lose.
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Smoking is Toxic
In
addition to containing
beeswax, caffeine, prunes, milk products, wine, and yeast,
cigarettes
and their smoke contain
thousands of chemicals, plus
nasty pesticide
residues, with at least 43
neurotoxic and cancer causing chemicals, including ammonia
(toilet
bowl cleaner?), arsenic (rat poison?!), butane (lighter fluid), carbon
monoxide
(poisonous gas), DDT (banned insecticide), formaldehyde (preserves
dead bodies),
hydrogen cyanide (poison), methyl bromide (class-1
carcinogen),
methyl isocyanate
(Bhopal culprit),
napthalene (mothballs), cadmium, lead, benzene,
malathion,
toxaphene,
and other “highly toxic” and disgusting
substances,
plus
radioactive
polonium 210, all with both short and long term consequences for people,
animals,
and the rest of the environment. Many of these additives
“spike”
the tobacco,
strengthening the addictive power of
cigars and cigarettes. The
tobacco plants have
also been genetically engineered for the same
slimy purposes of unnaturally and
secretly tricking
people to become more dependent on buying and using these
dangerous &
deadly products.
“Cigarettes contain more than 4000 chemical compounds and at least 400 toxic
substances.”
Source:
netdoctor.co.uk, “Why
Quit Smoking?”
Cigarettes=Biohazard
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Smoking Stinks
Smoke contains many
chemicals and substances, causing
bad breath,
wrinkled skin,
stinky clothes, cars and homes, and increasingly
polluted air. Combined with the
high costs of smoking, the
fraudulent tricks and high profits
of
tobacco companies,
the masses of litter, and the high number of fires caused
by cigarettes, it’s abundantly
clear that smoking, and the whole tobacco
industry and smoking lifestyle,
really
stinks.
All "tolled,"
smoke is totally
disgusting!

Smoking is Inefficient
“The amount of land currently used to grow tobacco worldwide could instead
be used
to feed 10 to 20
million people”.
Smoking in the US also
results in
“an annual cost of
more than $50 billion in direct
medical costs”, not
including sick days taken, lost
productivity, smoke damage, and
fires.
“Cigarettes
may cost smokers more
then they believe. A study by a team of health
economists finds the combined
price paid by their families and society is about $40
per pack of
cigarettes.” Further, the high cost
that individuals spend on cigarettes,
despite US government subsidies to tobacco farmers, could be
used for much
more
healthy, more enjoyable, and more considerate
and just activities.
“Concerned U.S. citizens should rightly question the sustainability and the
sanity of
the tobacco industry,
at home and abroad.”
High profits for the tobacco corporations shouldn’t mean high costs,
disease, and
death rates for the rest of us!
“Currently, the death and
disease caused by tobacco use costs the global economy
US $200 billion.” Source:
US Dept of Health and Human Services,
Tobacco:
Global Effects
of Tobacco Use
What a
waste!
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Smoking is Ugly
Smoking looks ugly,
stains teeth, is smelly, causes wrinkles, rasps the voice, blackens
the
lungs, pollutes the air, ruins clothing and furniture, and creates bad
aesthetics, while
butts, matches, and wrappers sully our parks, lakes,
beaches, sidewalks and streets,
gardens, schools, and other public places.
Don’t be addicted to ugliness! “An
estimated 4.5 trillion non-biodegradable cigarette
butts are littered worldwide every year.”
In fact, cigarettes
are the most littered item in America and the world.
“Smoking makes you smell bad,
gives you bad breath, makes your fingers turn
yellow, and gives you
premature wrinkles.”
Source:
Health Tip: Teen Smokers
Any way you look at it,
cigarettes are
butt
ugly.
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Smoking is Reactionary
Support
for right-wing politicians,
lying and fraud (they lied to the FDA and the Congress
and they lied to
us), deception, spiking, pushing, addicting kids with cartoon
characters,
greed, ads, PR, spin, suppressing scientific studies and
evidence of cancer and other deadly connections: reactionary tobacco
corporations have done all this and more. Cigarette
companies have
known for decades that nicotine is addictive and that cigarettes
cause
cancer, but they actively suppressed this information and lied about
it, even when under
oath in Congress.
Cigarette
companies are guilty of scamming us in the worst way, by
making us pay for
our own suffering.
Say No to Joe Chemo, don’t be tricked by
Phraud
Morris, and
resist the Marlboro Mauling.
“I knew that the
tobacco companies would gladly market a
dangerous, addictive
product, and that they would use cartoon characters to
aim their advertising
prowess at children, customers they hoped to one day
hook. I knew that the
industry was willing to knowingly sell a consumer
product that, when used as
directed, kills more than a third of its
customers.
If it’s willing to kill, it
should certainly be willing to lie.”
Source:
Judith Wilkenfeld,
“Lies
My Tobacco Company Told Me”
Think for
yourself.
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Smoking Causes Fires
Many
house fires and forest fires
are
accidentally and recklessly started by cigarettes,
some of which turn out to
be fatal to people and other animals.
“Careless smoking is
estimated to be the number one cause of fire
related death and injury in the nation.”
“Smoking is the leading cause of residential or
total fire death in all eight countries
with available statistics. Smoking
is a leading cause of fires in many more countries…
Fire tolls have fallen
when smoking decreased. Further reducing smoking can
substantially reduce
fire and disaster tolls.”
Source:
Bruce N. Leistikow, M.D. et al.,
“Fire
Injuries, Disasters, and Costs from Cigarettes and Cigarette Lights: A
Global Overview”
Protect the forests, your
friends, and yourself. Stop smoking and
stamp it out!
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Smoking is Selfish
Due to all of the
above—it damages the environment, supports greedy and fraudulent
corporations, is dangerous, toxic, unhealthy, unpleasant,
uncool, costly, inefficient,
stinky, and ugly—smoking
is selfish and cruel.
Tobacco
companies manipulate
cigarettes; don’t let them manipulate you.
Most people don’t smoke—and don’t like
or approve of the nuisance of
smoking—and more and more people are quitting smoking
every day.
Join us.
Kick the habit
and stick it to the giant tobacco
companies! You’ll
be doing yourself, your family, your friends, and
the environment a really BIG
favor.
“To continue to smoke and put
the health of your family and loved-ones at risk
would seem, on the face of
it, to be a rather selfish act. When you take into account
the damage that
smoking is doing to your own body then it seems more like insanity.
Think of
how traumatic it would be if a member of your family became ill or died
because of your smoking habit. Now consider the fact that they would feel
exactly
the same way if smoking ended your life prematurely or made you
seriously ill.”
Source:
“Passive Smoking – What You Should Know”
Be
Considerate!
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