Rimshot
The following is from the American Lung Association.  They know all about smoking:
http://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/about-smoking/health-effects/smoking.html
 
I hope all of you that want to quit will do so now.  Don't wait.  Just quit and start to recover.  It's one of the hardest things you will go through but it is all worth it.  Don't delay.  Just do it.  May the force be with you!

Smoking

Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of preventable disease and death worldwide. Smoking-related diseases claim over 393,000 American lives each year. Smoking cost the United States over $193 billion in 2004, including $97 billion in lost productivity and $96 billion in direct health care expenditures, or an average of $4,260 per adult smoker.¹

Key Facts About Smoking

• Cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer. Smoking is directly responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths and approximately 80-90 percent of COPD (emphysema and chronic bronchitis) deaths.²
• Among adults who have ever smoked, 70% started smoking regularly at age 18 or younger, and 86% at age 21 or younger.³
• Among current smokers, chronic lung disease accounts for 73 percent of smoking-related conditions. Even among smokers who have quit chronic lung disease accounts for 50 percent of smoking-related conditions.⁴
• Smoking harms nearly every organ in the body, and is a main cause of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema). It is also a cause of coronary heart disease, stroke and a host of other cancers and diseases.⁵

Smoking Rates Among Adults & Youth

• In 2009, an estimated 46.6 million, or 20.6 percent of adults (aged 18+) were current smokers.⁶
• Men tend to smoke more than women. In 2009, 23.5 percent of men currently smoked compared to 17.9 percent of females.⁷
• Prevalence of current smoking in 2009 was highest among non-Hispanic whites (22.2%) intermediate among non-Hispanic blacks (21.3%), and lowest among Hispanics (14.5%) and Asians (12.0%).⁸
• In 2009, 19.5 percent of high school students were current smokers.⁹ Over 5 percent of middle school students were current smokers in 2009.¹⁰

Smoking During Pregnancy

• Smoking in pregnancy accounts for an estimated 20 to 30 percent of low-birth weight babies, up to 14 percent of preterm deliveries, and some 10 percent of all infant deaths. Even apparently healthy, full-term babies of smokers have been found to be born with narrowed airways and reduced lung function.¹¹
• In 2005, 10.7 percent of all women smoked during pregnancy, down almost 45 percent from 1990.¹²
• Neonatal health-care costs attributable to maternal smoking in the U.S. have been estimated at $366 million per year, or $704 per maternal smoker.¹³

Facts About Quitting Smoking

• Nicotine is the ingredient in cigarettes that causes addiction. Smokers not only become physically addicted to nicotine; they also link smoking with many social activities, making smoking an extremely difficult addiction to break.14
• In 2009, an estimated 49.9 million adults were former smokers. Of the 46.6 million current adult smokers, 46.7 percent stopped smoking at least 1 day in the preceding year because they were trying to quit smoking completely.¹⁵
• Quitting smoking often requires multiple attempts. Using counseling or medication alone increases the chance of a quit attempt being successful; the combination of both is even more effective.¹⁶
• There are seven medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to aid in quitting smoking. Nicotine patches, nicotine gum and nicotine lozenges are available over-the-counter, and a nicotine nasal spray and inhaler are currently available by prescription. Buproprion SR (Zyban) and varenicline (Chantix) are non-nicotine pills.¹⁷
• Individual, group and telephone counseling are effective. Telephone quitline counseling is widely available and is effective for many different groups of smokers.¹⁸

Good stuff.I've sent a link of this to my girfriend (who wants to quit too,but she doesnt know it yet !)
thanks ever so much.
 
Kev
 

timidi
It is my understanding that nicotine alone is not bad for you. Except that it is addictive.....??

Not sure ,I think someone mention earlier it's a poison. I think it's only bad when you not had it for a couple of hours lol !!!! 

kev11111111111111

timidi
It is my understanding that nicotine alone is not bad for you. Except that it is addictive.....??

Not sure ,I think someone mention earlier it's a poison. I think it's only bad when you not had it for a couple of hours lol !!!! 

 
http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/nicotine_red.pdf
 
"Nicotine is acutely toxic (Category I) by all routes of exposure (oral, dermal, and
inhalation). The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. A dose of
40–60 mg can be a lethal dosage for adult human beings and doses as low as 1-4 mg can
be associated with toxic effects in some individuals."

http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleid=1121737
 
But the doses found in average cigarette smoking are probably not the cause of most of the health effects.
 

timidi
It is my understanding that nicotine alone is not bad for you. Except that it is addictive.....??

I guess no one read my long post above...
 
Nicotine is a poison that was once used as a pesticide until something safer came along to replace it.  That new pesticide?  DDT!
 
To summarize:  Nicotine by itself is not really that addictive!  If it was, then people would become addicted to the nicotine patches (they don't) and there would be physiological issues to overcome (sweats, shakes, waking up every hour NEEDING to have some and so on).  It's the social habit part that becomes addictive (along with the sugar/insulin response, the need to breathe deeply, etc.).

Not entirely sure about that.
 
Me & my wife gave up the ciggies three and a half years ago, using nicotine gun to "taper off"
 
Trouble is, we are most definitely addicted to the gum, getting through about 8/9 pieces a day
 
So in my experience, nicotine IS addictive. At least I'm not breathing in all the tar & crap that's inside a cigarette

 
Kev, I found those electronic cigarettes absolutely useless...
 
 
 
 
 
I could never manage to light them.
 
 

seems pretty addictive to me. i don't socialize, so, that's out....

I know cigs are addictive.  The American Lung Association blurb I posted also thinks so.  My doctors think so.  It goes on and on.  The bottom line is that they are absolutely killing those that use them and many of them cannot stop.
 
I just read today online that over 2 million lives have been saved since the 1950's when hazard usage data and adds started to appear and people started learning how bad the cigs are.  There are many states whose population does not even exceed 2 million people!  I got hooked on them when I was a young teenager and smoked for over 20 years.  What a nasty cruel thing to do to my body. 
 
I hope anyone smoking will quit today.  Don't wait.  Your life is so precious. 
 
 

SteveStrummerUK
 
Kev, I found those electronic cigarettes absolutely useless...
 
 
 
 
 
I could never manage to light them.
 
 

Terrible !!  Happy New Year Steve !!

Rimshot
I know cigs are addictive.  The American Lung Association blurb I posted also thinks so.  My doctors think so.  It goes on and on.  The bottom line is that they are absolutely killing those that use them and many of them cannot stop.
 
I just read today online that over 2 million lives have been saved since the 1950's when hazard usage data and adds started to appear and people started learning how bad the cigs are.  There are many states whose population does not even exceed 2 million people!  I got hooked on them when I was a young teenager and smoked for over 20 years.  What a nasty cruel thing to do to my body. 
 
I hope anyone smoking will quit today.  Don't wait.  Your life is so precious. 
 
 

+1 Cigs are very addictive and thats why its hard to stop. I can see where Craig B is coming from though...if you approach it with the attitude that the addiction is more in the sense of the habit then the chemicals in the smoke than it's less scary somehow when facing stopping ? Seems like good advise to me. 
 
Hopefully people will smoke less and less as the dangers come more apparent.I think a lot of it is down to money though,and sadly the less money people have,now adays the more likely they are to smoke :( People know it's bad for them,but they treat it like its a reward,rather than something harmful ?? Screwed up !!!! 
 
Lots of people do seem to have given up with these e cigs anyway,so I'm gonna see where that takes me !!
 
Thks for your post