Now…Now…Now…Someone is dying because of smoking every 6.5 seconds. According to the World Health Organization around 5.4 million deaths a year are caused by tobacco. Smoking is set to kill 6.5 million people in 2015 and 8.3 million humans in 2030, with the biggest rise in low-and middle-income countries. An estimated 1.3 billion people are smokers worldwide. Over 443,000 Americans (over 18 percent of all deaths) die because of smoking each year, secondhand smoke killing about 50,000 of them. Larry West, About.com's Environmentalism Guide, points out that as a result of secondhand smoke, even nonsmokers are exposed to "at least 250 chemicals that are either toxic or carcinogenic."
The World Health Organization considers smoke-free laws to have an influence to reduce demand for tobacco by creating an environment where smoking becomes more difficult. This is to help shift social norms away from the acceptance of smoking in everyday life. Along with tax measures, cessation measures, and education, smoking ban policy is currently viewed as an important element in lowering smoking rates and promoting public health. When correctly and strictly implemented it is seen as one important policy agenda goal to change human behavior away from unhealthy behavior and towards a healthy lifestyle.
If the threat of cancer can't persuade you to quit smoking, maybe the prospect of poverty will. $72.7 Billion. The total cost of caring for people with health problems caused by cigarette smoking, counting all sources of medical payments, is about $72.7 billion per year, according to health economists at the University of California. Smoking accounted for 11.8 percent of all medical expenditures in the U.S. in 1993, according to the Institute for Health and Aging. The Miller-Rice report states that the actual cost of medical care for smoking-related disease in the next 25 years will be an astronomical $1.8 trillion! The financial consequences of “lighting up” stretch...