Why are we smoking? by Barbora Misakova

Why are smokers smoking? It is silly question, there is no doubt, but I am asking anyway. They know perfectly well that smoking is harmful for their lungs and other vitally important organs. What is more, their teeth and fingers are getting yellow and their clothes and breath always smells of cigars. Even the smoking bans from last few years didn’t prevent most of them from smoking. On the contrary, they smoke even more. American health officials reported that U.S. smoking rates continue to hold steady, at about one in five adults lighting up regularly. In 2009 there were about 21 percent of U.S. adults smoking, what represents about the same percentage as the year be! fore. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shown, the smoking rate fell dramatically since the 1960s, but has basically been flat since about 2004. What is worse, teen smoking which is at nearly 20 percent, has been improving lately neither. As CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said: “It is tragic” that more than 46 million American adults still smoke cigarettes. He calls smoking the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the United States. According to his estimation, there are 1,000 Americans dying every day because of their smoking habit. Even more disheartening numbers are those which points at reality that nearly all children (98 percent) who live with a smoker have measurable tobacco toxins in their body. Testing more than 30,000 nonsmokers between 1999 and 2008 has shown that levels of cotinine, a chemical from tobacco smoke, in the blood dropped over the 10 years – from about 52 percent to 40. That may be due in part to more smoking ban! s in workplaces, restaurants and other places. But there are s! till man y other things we should be aware of in connection with smoking!

related story (sgx18161): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100907/ap_on_he_me/us_med_smoki...

by Barbora Misakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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