If, for example, one wooden match is used to light two cigarettes, the six trillion cigarettes smoked globally each year would require the destruction of about nine million trees to produce three trillion matches.ĩ6. Most cigarettes are lit using matches or gas-filled lighters. A single tobacco smoker could contribute over 24,000 metric tons of methane or 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the planet per year.ĩ5. Tobacco smoke can measurably contribute to air pollution levels in a city.ĩ4. These substances are leached from discarded butts into aquatic environments and soil.ĩ3. Hazardous substances have been identified in cigarette butts - including arsenic, lead, nicotine and formaldehyde. Cigarette butts are among the most commonly discarded piece of waste globally and are the most frequent item of litter picked up on beaches and water edges worldwide.ĩ2. Quit tobacco to protect the environment.ĩ1. Governments and local authorities pay to clean up tobacco waste, not the tobacco companies themselves. Among HIV-positive smokers, the average length of life lost is 12.3 years, more than double the number of years lost by HIV-positive non-smokers.ĩ0. The immunosuppressive effects of tobacco put people living with HIV at an increased risk of developing AIDS. Smoking also puts immune-compromised individuals, such as those living with cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis or cancer, at a higher risk of disease-related comorbidities and premature death.Ĩ2.

Smokers with a genetic predisposition to autoimmune disorders are at an increased risk of several diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, bacterial meningitis, postsurgical infection, and cancers.Ĩ1. Components of tobacco smoke weaken the immune system, putting smokers at risk of pulmonary infections.Ĩ0. Smokers are more likely to lose bone density, fracture more easily and experience serious complications, such as delayed healing or failure to heal.ħ9. Smokers are likely to experience gastrointestinal disorders, such as stomach ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease, associated with abdominal cramps, persistent diarrhea, fever and rectal bleeding, and cancers of the gastrointestinal tract.ħ8.

This often lengthens their intensive care unit (ICU) and overall hospital stay, potentially exposing them to other infection.ħ7. Tobacco smokers are harder to wean off mechanical ventilation. Tobacco smokers are at significantly higher risk than non-smokers for post-surgical complications.ħ6. Tobacco use increases the risk of periodontal disease, a chronic inflammatory disease that wears away at the gums and destroys the jawbone, leading to tooth loss.ħ5. Tobacco use restricts blood flow which, if left untreated, can lead to gangrene (death of body tissue) and amputation of affected areas.ħ4.

Tobacco smoke reduces the delivery of oxygen to the body’s tissues.ħ3. Menopause occurs 1–4 years earlier in female smokers because smoking reduces the production of eggs in the ovaries, resulting in a loss of reproductive function and subsequent low estrogen levels.ħ2. Women who smoke are more likely to experience painful menstruation and more severe menopausal symptoms.ħ1. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, and an estimated 14% of Alzheimer’s cases globally can be attributed to smoking.ħ0. Smoking is a risk factor for dementia, a group of disorders that result in mental decline.Ħ9. The risk of developing diabetes is higher in smokers.Ħ8. With every puff of a cigarette, toxins and carcinogens are delivered to the body, at least 70 of the chemicals are known to cause cancer.Ħ7. Lifelong tobacco smokers lose at least 10 years of life on average.Ħ6. If that’s not enough here are a few more reasons!Ħ5. Within 15 years, your risk of heart disease is that of a non-smoker. Within 10 years, your lung cancer death rate is about half that of a smoker.

Within 5–15 years, your stroke risk is reduced to that of a non-smoker. Within 1–9 months, coughing and shortness of breath decrease. Within 2–12 weeks, your circulation improves and lung function increases. Within 12 hours, the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal. After just 20 minutes of quitting smoking, your heart rate drops. The benefits of quitting tobacco are almost immediate. Quitting can be challenging, especially with the added social and economic stress that have come as a result of the pandemic, but there are a lot of reasons to quit. When evidence was released this year that smokers were more likely to develop severe disease with COVID-19 compared to non-smokers, it triggered millions of smokers to want to quit tobacco. Tobacco causes 8 million deaths every year.

Easy ways to quit smoking