Smoking Sucks

Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals. About 50, such as tar, ammonia (household cleaner), carbon monoxide (car exhaust), oxides of nitrogen and benzopyrenes, can cause cancer. Smoking causes cancers of the lung, mouth, throat, voice box and esophagus. In Canada, lung cancer accounts for almost one-third of cancer deaths in men and about one-quarter of cancer deaths in women.

Smoking causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a group of diseases that includes emphysema, chronic bronchitis and asthmatic bronchitis. That means a lot of coughing and wheezing and, eventually, death. Ten per cent to 15% of all smokers will develop COPD. There is no cure for it and no way to reverse the damage.

Smoking can cause severe damage to the heart and arteries. This can lead to heart attack and sudden death, stroke, peripheral vascular disease ("poor circulation") and aortic aneurysm.

Tar from cigarettes turns your teeth and fingers yellow, and stains your fingernails. Smoking also makes your clothes and hair stink.
Long story short, smoking sucks.

Quick facts

• Smoking decreases the blood flow to the skin, leaving it leathery and wrinkled.
• Smoking can stress your immune system so that you get pimples and lose your hair.
• Smoking causes cancer of the lung, mouth, throat, voice box and esophagus.
• Smoking causes heart disease, stroke and diseases of the blood vessels.