Smoking: An endangerment to everyone's life
             Have you ever tried smoking? If you have and continued, have you ever tried to quit? In 1999, an estimated 45.7 million adults were former smokers. Of the current 46.5 million smokers, more than 32 million persons reported they wanted to quit smoking completely. Approximately 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before the age of 21.
             Nicotine is an addictive drug, which when inhaled in cigarette smoke reaches the brain faster than drugs that enter the body intravenously. Smokers become not only physically addicted to nicotine, but they also link smoking with many social activities, giving smokers a difficult time breaking the habit.
             From 1950 to 2000, tobacco will have killed more than 60 million people in developed countries alone, more than died in World War II. One out of every two long-term smokers will ultimately be killed by tobacco. In developed countries, half will be killed in old age, after age seventy, but the other half will be killed in middle age, before age seventy, and those who die from smoking before age seventy will lose more than 20 years of life expectancy.
             Four million people die yearly from tobacco-related diseases, one death every eight seconds. If current trends continue, WHO OMS estimates that the toll will rise to ten million by 2030, one death every three seconds. Tobacco is fast becoming a greater cause of death and disability than any single disease.
             Tobacco advertising plays an important role in encouraging young people to begin a lifelong addiction to smoking before they are old enough to fully understand its long-term health risks. It is estimated that 4.5 million United States teenagers are cigarette smokers, and 22.4 percent of high school seniors smoke on a daily basis.
             Approximately 22.2 million American women are smokers. Current female smokers ages 35 years or older are 12 times more likely to die prematurely from lung cance...