Literally over three thousand Americans under the age of eighteen smoke their first cigarette every day, these teenagers are oftentimes unaware of the dangers and risk they are putting themselves in. New smokers do not realize that their new habit can lead to things like heart disease, cancer, strokes, and many other health issues.
Did you know that the average cigarette contains over six hundred ingredients. Cigarettes are loaded with dangerous chemicals. Many tobacco companies will try to argue these ingredients as being ‘not so bad’ because they have been approved by the FDA but these chemicals are things like arsenic (Rat poison) among other things we wouldn’t think about putting into our bodies.
If you take the time to look at the FDA’s established list of harmful and potentially harmful constituents in tobacco products and tobacco smoke. Arsenic dangers listed include: cardiovascular toxicant, reproductive toxicant, developmental toxicant, and carcinogen. This sounds pretty bad right? It only gets worse. There are many other harmful ingredients in cigarettes and cigarette smoke as well, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and cadmium. About seventy of the chemical ingredients found in cigarettes are considered carcinogenic, this meaning they potentially could cause cancer.
Cigarette smoke is known to account for around thirty if not more percent of all cancer related deaths in the United States! If we do not begin taking the steps needed to prevent smoking it is estimated that around five million people under the age of eighteen will die prematurely due to a smoking related illness. Is that what you want for your family and for yourself?