One third (33%) of all youths who start smoking regularly before the age of 18 will die early because of it. Half (50%) of all long term smokers will die, on average, fifteen years earlier than expected as a result of their smoking. It's estimated by the American Thoracic Society that a heavy smoker at age 25 can expect a life expectancy at least 25% shorter than a nonsmoker. Smoking has more than fifty ways of making life a misery through ill-ness and more than twenty ways of killing you! The younger a person starts smoking, the greater the risk of tobacco addiction, tobacco related disease and early death. The body is still developing during teenage years. Therefore, smoking during these years is particularly hazardous. (See question 14 on pgs 26-27). A 20-year term life insurance policy for a teen-age smoker is more than twice as expensive as the same policy for a teenage non-smoker (Source: lifequote.com). Based on highly accurate survival statistics, the life insurance company is betting that the teenage non-smoker is more than twice as likely as the teen-age smoker to be alive after twenty years. It is estimated that each cigarette steals 7 min-utes from a smokers life. (see slidesa, b, c, d, e, f )

e) Are girls and women less susceptible to the health consequences of smoking?

Girls and women are at least as susceptible to all of the early and late health consequences of smoking as boys and men. There is some recent evidence that women may even be more susceptible to contracting lung cancer and emphysema from smoking. (The only rea-son there are more male than female patients in the Video is that the patients came from a veterans (VA) hospital that serves almost all men).

*f) What are the short and long term benefits of quitting?

Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. The risk of premature death due to cigarettes depends on the number of years of smoking, the number of cigarettes smoked per day, the age at which smoking began and the absence or presence of existing disease or illness at the time of quitting. Regardless of age or existing disease, however, smoking cessation is the single most impor-tant action that smokers can take to improve and lengthen the quality of their lives!

The health benefits from smoking cessation (quitting) are immediate and substantial. Ac-cording to the American Cancer Society: within 20 minutes of quitting, blood pressure and pulse rate become normal; within 8 hours, smokers breath will disappear, carbon monoxide levels in blood drops and oxygen levels rise to normal; within 48 hours, the ability to taste and smell improves and breathing starts to become easier; within 2-3 months, walking be-comes easier and lung capacity increases up to 30%; within 1-10 years, the risk of mouth, throat and lung cancer, heart disease and stroke progressively decrease.

On average, people who quit smoking before the age of 50 reduce their risk of premature death over the next 15 years by half. Only one year after quitting, the excess risk of dying from coronary heart disease is reduced by half and the risk continues to drop returning to