Smokers have plenty of excuses to convince themselves to continue their dreadful habit. But, with time they realize that smoking can become an anxious, fearful activity. Such smokers need to realize that cigarettes are not their buddies, but horrific killers in every aspect. This article presents many shocking smoking facts that can you convince you to quit smoking for good, starting today.
Tobacco Statistics and Smoking Facts
- Currently, there are about 1.1 billion smokers in the whole world. By 2025, the number of smokers could increase to 1.6 billion.
- China hosts about 300 million smokers. They smoke about 1.7 trillion cigarettes each year, averaging three million cigarettes per minute.
- All over the world, about 10 million cigarettes are bought each minute. Each day 15 billion cigarettes are sold. More than five trillion cigarettes are produced and consumed annually.
- The weight of five trillion cigarette filters is about two billion pounds.
- The environment is affected by the discarded waste of trillions of filters that are full of toxic chemicals.
- Cigarette filters are actually made of a plastic material named cellulose acetate. Therefore, each cigarette filter can take up to about 10 years before it decomposes.
- An average cigarette hosts about nine milligrams of nicotine. A cigar can contain about 200 milligrams of nicotine. Some cigars have 400 milligrams.
- If an adult ingests the total nicotine contained in four cigarettes, he/she can be killed.
- Benzene in cigarette smoke is known to cause acute myeloid leukemia. In the U.S., cigarette smoke is the reason for about 90% of benzene exposure.
- Cigarette smoke contains low levels of polonium and radioactive lead.
- Secondhand smoke hosts more than 50 carcinogens.
- The smoke emanating from a burning cigarette contains more toxins than exhaled smoke.
- About 3,000 American kids start smoking each day.
- Worldwide, about 20% of teens aged between 13 to 15 are cigarette smokers.
- About 50% of long-term smokers will die due to tobacco-related causes.
- Tobacco takes a heavy worldwide toll of five million deaths each year.
- Tobacco use is expected to cause a billion deaths in this century, if anti-smoking efforts are not successful around the world.
