According to Wikipedia, “smoking is a practice where a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke tasted or inhaled. This is primarily done as a form of recreational drug use.”Smoking dates to as early as 5000 BC. It was associated with religious ceremonies like cleansing rituals or offerings to deities. It spread throughout the world after the European exploration and conquest of the Americas. Today, smoking is practiced by around 1.22 billion people, about 20% of which are young teens. Rates of smoking have declined in the developed world. For instance, in the United States, smoking rates from 1965 to 2006 have dropped from 42% to 20.8% of adults. But in the developing world, consumption is rising by 3.4% per year as of 2002.

Smoking is among the leading cause of diseases such as lung cancer, heart attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, vascular stenosis, and birth defects! And today, smoking is the second major cause of death! How many people die from smoking?

How many people die from smoking?

In 2004, the World Health Organization projected 58.8 million deaths, with 5.4 million attributed to tobacco smoking. In 2015, tobacco smoking is predicted to kill 6.5 million people and 8.3 million in 2030. According to the World Health Organization, a current or former smoker dies every 6.5 seconds!

In the United States, over 443,000 Americans die because of smoking. And secondhand smoke kills about 50,000 of them. In China, smoking causes 1.2 million deaths each year. That is 2,000 dead people a day! The numbers are staggering!

Knowing all these smoking hazards and death tolls, which side of the statistic would you want to belong? Will you be counted under the death toll? Or would you rather quit smoking to live a long and healthy life? Remember, with every cigarette smoked, you are losing 11 valuable minutes of your life!

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