Tobacco Shock Sheet
Cigarette tar contains over 3,000 chemicals and secondhand smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals.
These chemicals include:
 | Acetone (Nail polish remover) |
| Hydrazine (Rocket Fuel) |
| Formaldehyde (a preserving agent for those dead frogs in Biology class) |
| Cyanide (Rat Poison!!!!!!!!!!!!) |
Smoking causes more deaths every year than fires, auto crashes, AIDS, alcohol, cocaine/heroin, murders, and suicides combined.
| 70% of teens that smoke wish they had never started. 66% wish they could quit and can’t. |
| Jimmy Spares started to use spit tobacco when he was 15 years old. He died before his twentieth birthday from tobacco related complications. |
| Tobacco affects your ability to think and move by cutting the oxygen supply to your brain. |
| Maine has the highest percent of tobacco use in the country!!!!!!!!!!! |
Tobacco Shock Sheet
| More than 46,000,000 people in the U.S. Smoke and more than 2,000,000 people a year quit or die from smoking. |
| When Tobacco sales lagged in the U.S., Tobacco companies increased advertisement and promotion in developing countries. (1984 International sales 6 billion - 1994 International sales 35 billion). |
| Tobacco Companies spend more than 12.6 million dollars a day (1991) on advertising and promotion of cigarettes. Phillip Morris spends 100 million dollars per year on TV ads alone to tell you about the $50,000 donation they made to the one charity or another. |
| Every ten seconds somewhere in the world someone dies from Tobacco related causes. |
| 90% of all smokers started before the age of 18 years old. The average age of a new smoker is 13 years old. |
| The concentration of Carbon Monoxide in Tobacco is 800x higher than the level considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency!!!!!! |
Tobacco Shock Sheet
| 5 million children alive today will die as adults due to Tobacco related causes. |
| Secondhand Smoke has more toxic chemicals than the smoke inhaled by the smoker. |
| 1.2 billion dollars - - The amount of money that Tobacco companies make in one year from the illegal sale of Tobacco products to minors. |
| The U.S. Government spends billions of dollars on medical care for tobacco related illnesses…This means YOU spend billions a year because of Tobacco use. |
Statistics on Smoking in Maine
| Tobacco is the number one killer in Maine. It kills more Mainers than illegal drugs, homicides, car accidents, alcohol and AIDS combined. Every year about 2,500 Mainers die from Tobacco-related diseases such as cancer and heart disease. |
| 1 in 9 Maine children will die prematurely from tobacco-related illness unless we work together to prevent it. |
| Maine has the highest adult (18-30) tobacco addiction rate in the country (about 32%) and one of the highest youth rates (about 39%). |
| Tobacco-related illnesses cost Maine taxpayers a quarter of a billion dollars per year. |
The Partnership for a Tobacco-Free Maine
Even More Tobacco Facts
Facts from the Amer. Council on Science and Health Printing, Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn’t Tell You
| Broken leg of a smoker takes 80% longer to heal 276 days compared to 146 for a nonsmoker. |
| Smoking one cigarette can impair blood flow to hands by 40% for up to an hour. |
| Side Stream smoke (Smoke from end of the cigarette) has smaller particles that penetrate deeper into the lungs even when inhaled through the nose. |
| Male smokers have a lower level of testosterone (the male hormone needed for sperm production). They also have higher levels of follicle stimulating hormone (a feminizing hormone). |
| A smoker absorbs around 10% of the 25 mg of nicotine in the average filter cigarette; 60 mg is a fatal dose. Therefore, if all the nicotine from just three cigarettes was placed on your tongue, it would kill you! Indeed, small children playing with old smoking pipes have been known to receive fatal doses. |