Facts

In this section, you’ll find statistics on tobacco use and its negative health and financial effects. According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, smoking is more addictive than cocaine, marijuana or alcohol and causes more deaths than these three substances combined with AIDS, murders and suicides.

In the U.S.:

More than 43 million adults smoke.
8.6 million people suffer from smoking-caused illness.
Approximately 400,000 people die each year from their own smoking.
229,350 kids have become regular smokers in 2009.
Pregnant women who smoke or are exposed to secondhand smoking can have spontaneous abortions, low-birth-weight babies, stillborn births, ectopic pregnancies and other delivery problems.
50,000 adult nonsmokers die each year from exposure to secondhand smoke.

In Tennessee:

132,000 kids currently under 18 will die prematurely from smoking.
9,700 adults die each year from their own smoking.
488,000 kids are exposed to secondhand smoke at home.
19.3 million packs of cigarettes are bought or smoked by kids each year.
$2.6 billion are spent annually on health care costs directly caused by smoking.

* All statistics are from the “Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids” 2009.