MORE THAN 16 MILLION AMERICANS SUFFER FROM A DISEASE CAUSED BY SMOKING

Tobacco use is responsible for nearly a half million deaths each year, more than one third of which are premature deaths due to cancer.

One in five, or 46 million, U.S. adults used tobacco products in 2021.

More than one-half of adults who smoked cigarettes (55%) in 2020 attempted to quit in

the past year, and only about 8% quit successfully.

For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness. Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis.

Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and affecting the health of smokers in general. Quitting smoking has immediate as well as long-term benefits for you and your loved ones.

Nicotine is the main addictive drug in tobacco that makes quitting so hard. Cigarettes are designed to rapidly deliver nicotine to your brain.

Inside your brain, nicotine triggers the release of chemicals that make you feel good. As nicotine stimulates parts of your brain over and over, your brain gets used to having nicotine around.

Over time, nicotine changes how your brain works and makes it seem like you need nicotine just to feel okay.

When you stop smoking, your brain gets irritable. As a result, you might get anxious or upset. You might have a hard time concentrating or sleeping, have strong urges to smoke, or just feel generally uncomfortable.

These feelings are called withdrawal. This gets better a few weeks after quitting as your brain gets used to not having nicotine around.

Some quit-smoking medicines contain nicotine. This gives you a safe way to get used to not having so much nicotine from cigarettes in your brain.

To quit successfully, you have to deal with both of these challenges: 

Your brain not having nicotine, 

and not having cigarettes during your daily routines. 

It can be hard to deal with both at once:

Quit-smoking medicines help with the first challenge by reducing cravings and withdrawal symptoms like being irritable and having trouble concentrating and sleeping.

Since Nicotine is the main addictive drug in tobacco that makes quitting so hard. The medicines with nicotine are called nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs). They include the nicotine patch, nicotine gum, nicotine lozenge, nicotine nasal spray, and nicotine inhaler.

 That allows you to focus on the second challenge: figuring out how to get through the day doing all the activities you connected to smoking. 

The good news is there are lots of simple things you can do that make it easier.

A significant body of evidence has shown that cigarettes have a detrimental effect on health of the smoker as well as people who passively inhale smoke.

 Secondhand smoke (SHS) has been associated with various diseases as well as premature death. 

SHS is known to be as bad as direct smoking and contains 70 carcinogens such as benzene and Benzopyrene, as well as nicotine, which is known to be harmful to health and associated with cancer. 

Children are particularly vulnerable to SHS. This can have an adverse effect on all aspects of their health and development, leading to increase in risk of respiratory diseases and coronary heart diseases as well as poor growth and, in some cases, sudden infant death syndrome.

 In addition, exposure to SHS in childhood has been shown to shorten adult lifespan. 

Vaping can have health risks for youth. Most vapes have nicotine in them, which is highly addictive. Nicotine use in adolescence:

Can harm brain development, which continues until about age 25.

Can impact attention, learning, mood, and impulse control.

May increase risk for future addiction to other drugs.

Not only can nicotine in e-cigarettes pose health risks for youth, but youth who vape may also be more likely to go on to use regular cigarettes.

In addition to nicotine, e-cigarette aerosol can contain other harmful and potentially harmful substances. These substances include:

Cancer-causing chemicals

Volatile organic compounds

Ultrafine particles

Flavorings that have been linked to lung disease

Heavy metals such as nickel, tin, and lead

If you are thinking about quitting smoking and would like some help, a quitline might be just what you need to succeed. 

Quitlines provide free coaching—over the phone—to help you quit smoking.

When you call 1-800-QUIT-NOW , you can speak confidentially with a highly trained quit coach.

Quitlines provide many of the services and similar support you get in a stop-smoking class or from your doctor, and can be a valuable complement to your doctor’s care.

Quitlines are available throughout the United States.

Coaching help is available in several languages.