Smoking
...cers of the lung, larynx (voice box), oral cavity, pharynx (throat), and esophagus, and is a contributing cause in the development of cancers of the bladder, pancreas, liver, uterine cervix, kidney, stomach, colon and rectum. But cancers account for only about half of the deaths related to smoking. Smoking is also a major cause of heart disease, bronchitis, emphysema, stroke, and contributes to the severity of pneumonia. Tobacco has a damaging affect on women's reproductive health and is associated with increased risk of miscarriage, early delivery (prematurely), stillbirth, infant death, and is a cause of low birth weight in infants. The smoke from cigarettes has a harmful health effect on those around the smoke (secondary smoke). Based on data collected from 1995 to 1999, it estimated that adult male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lost 14.5 years of life because of smoking. Cigarettes and other tobacco products are the cause of over 5-million deaths, globally, each year. Most of these deaths could have been prevented, if people did not smoke cigarettes. Yet cigarettes and other tobacco products are still legal, and used by a large variety of people. The world health organization believes that by 2010 tobacco will kill more than 10-million people a year. Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death in the world. Tobacco is the least regulated consumer product. One of the reasons for this is because countries make so much money on tobacco products, from the taxes that are put on cigarettes. Not only does the gove...