Facts About Nicotine Addiction

Nicotine is a drug found in all tobacco products, like cigarettes, cigars, snuff, and dip.  This drug can make you feel calm or alert for short periods of time, and you’re body will start to need more and more of this drug to feel good.  As such, smoking becomes a big part of your life.  You may smoke when you are bored or upset.  You may also light up out of habit—for example, whenever you drink coffee, drive in your car, or hang out with other smokers.

For these reasons, quitting is very hard to do and may take many tries.  But it is never too late!  In fact, over 3 million American smokers quit every year.  In making your decision to quit, consider:

Tobacco kills more than 430,000 Americans each year – more than alcohol, cocaine, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire and AIDS combined! Smoking doesn’t just kill smokers.  In fact, about 50,000 non-smoking Americans die every year as a result of breathing other people’s cigarette smoke. Cigarette smoke contains thousands of lethal chemicals such as arsenic, and others found in DDT, varnish, and insecticide. Smoking is responsible for 7 % of total U.S. health care costs – an estimated $50 billion each year. Smoking is the most preventable cause of cancer in the U.S. Adults teach kids by example: children of parents/guardians who smoke are much more likely to start smoking themselves…and suffer the same fatal health problems.

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