Lung cancer is already the leading cause at death for men and has just surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of death for women. There is a significant link between cancer of the mouth, lip, tongue and throat, and the use of cigarettes, pipes, cigars or chewing tobacco. Lip and tongue cancer appear to be related to pipe and cigar smoking. This means that those body tissues that need to be flexible, to expand and contract, cannot do so as well. In fact, smokers have two times the risk of dying of heart attacks and three times the risk of dying of strokes than nonsmokers.
Tobacco is even a health risk to unborn babies of mothers who smoke.
It increases the risk of miscarriage, low birth weight complications during pregnancy, and the likelihood of health problems during infancy. As if all that were not enough, smoking decreases the resistance of the nose, sinuses, and lungs to infections. This is especially true with little children who live in a smoker's household. Tobacco is the most preventable cause of death. This number equals the number of people who were killed in seconds at Hiroshima.