American Heart Association — historical archive

Headquarters Office
2550 US Highway I
North Brunswick, NJ 08902-4301
Tel 908 ### 2610
Fax 908 ### 2736

"Cigarettes are the only legal product that, when used as intended, kills."
Louis Sullivan, former US Health and Human Service Secretary.

Smoking is the #1 preventable cause of death in the nation.

Smoking causes 418,690 deaths per year, including 12,600 in N.J.

Years of potential life lost (Centers for Disease Control survey based on 1993 statistics, published in January, 1996): Nationally - 5,048,740 years or an average of 12.1 years for each death due to smoking. New Jersey - 151,773 or an average of 12.0 years for each death due to smoking.

Smoking is responsible for one out of five American deaths.

Smoking Kills more people than cocaine, heroine, alcohol, fire, automobile accidents, homicides, suicides, and AIDS combined.

Reports of the Surgeon General have concluded that smoking increases mortality and morbidity in both men and women. Disease associations identified as causal include coronary heart disease, atherosclerotic peripheral vascular disease, lung and laryngeal cancer, oral cancer, esophageal cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, intrauterine growth retardation and low-birthweight babies.

Cigarette smoking is now considered to be a probable cause of unsuccessful pregnancies, increased infant mortality. and peptic ulcer disease; to be a contributing factor for cancer of the bladder, pancreas and kidney; and to be associated with cancer of the stomach.

9O percent of adult smokers are addicted to tobacco before they reach the age of 20; 50 percent before the age of 14.

According to the CDC survey, there are 46,824,800 adult smokers in the United States (22.9 percent of the population, overall); 30.5 percent of youth currently smoke.

According to the CDC survey, there are 1,136,900 smokers in New Jersey (19.5 percent of the state population). 27.3 percent of youths in grades 9 - 12 smoke in New Jersey.

Each day, more than 3,000 American youngsters (under age 18) begin smoking.

Passive smoking is the third leading preventable cause of death.

Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS), known as "second hand smoke", causes 53,000 deaths per year of non-smokers, including 1,600 in N.J. This includes 37,O00 - 40,O00 deaths from heart disease and 3,825 lung disease deaths as a result of exposure to ETS.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders", concludes that exposure to ETS can cause lung cancer in non-smokers and that exposure to ETS increases the risk of serious lung disease during the first two years of a child's life.

The EPA designated ETS as a Group A carcinogen, a rating used only for dangerous substances (such as asbestos) known to cause cancer in humans.

In "Pediatrics", the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, a study linked passive smoking and SIDS. It found that mothers who smoke during and the after pregnancy were three times more likely to have had infants die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS); infants exposed to passive smoke only after birth were two times more likely to have died from SIDS than infants never exposed.

ETS & YOUNG CHILDREN - Annual Statistics: 150,000-300,000 lower respiratory infections (LRI); 7,500 - 15,000 hospitalizations for LRI; 400,000 - 1,000,000 attacks of asthma; 8,000-26,000 new cases of asthma; respiratory symptoms of irritation; middle ear effusion (a sign of middle ear disease)@ significant reduction in lung function.

Cigarette smoke is a collection of over 4.000 chemicals, including 401 poisons and 43 carcinogens such as nicotine, a deadly poison ( one drop, 70mg, will kill an average man within a few minutes, most cigarettes contain somewhere between .2mg and 2.2mg); cyanide, a deadly poison, formaldehyde, a chemical preservative; methanol, a wood alcohol; acetone, the prime ingredient in nail polish remover.

Smoking costs: 1993, $50 billion in health care and lost productivity; $7.2 billion in Medicare and Medicaid for tobacco related illnesses.

The total financial cost of smoking in 1991 was estimated to be $70.0 billion of $2.59 per pack of cigarettes sold in the U.S. This translates to S 1,078 per smoker and $272 per capita.

ln 1993, the tobacco industry, spent $5.6 billion to advertise and promote tobacco products.

ln 1991, tobacco companies produced a 137.3% total return to investors, with total sales increasing by 16.3% and profits by 27.2% over 1990 figures. Each of these categories reflect a number one ranking over all other industries. Total profits for 1991 were $1.42 billion.

Sources: Surgeon General's Reports-, American Heart Association; Tri-Agency Coalition on Smoking OR Health; Environmental Protection Agency; American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease
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