Tobacco is often the first drug used by young people who go on to use alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. Cigarettes are the most heavily advertised products in the United States. Tobacco companies spent approximately five billion dollars, in 1995, on advertising and promotion of their deadly products. Lung cancer has now surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths among women. Female smokers are more than ten times as likely to die of emphysema or chronic bronchitis than nonsmoking females.
Cigarette smoking is also the number one cause of cancer death in men.
Male smokers are almost ten times more likely to die of bronchitis and emphysema and 22 times more likely to die from lung cancer than nonsmoking males. An estimated 430,700 Americans die each year from the effects of cigarette smoking. Smoking causes disease and death. Every medical and health agency agrees. Each year, more Americans die from cigarette-related diseases than from AIDS, drug abuse, car accidents and murder combined.