Each year more than 18,000 Australians die prematurely because of smoking - that's 50 a day. Smoking kills more people in Australia than the total number killed by drink, drugs, murder, suicide, road crashes, rail crashes, air crashes, poisoning, drowning, fires, falls, lightning, electrocution, snakes, spiders and sharks. 82 stomachs 40 pancreases 68 wombs 85 bladders 115 kidneys and 161 miscellaneous body parts.
Tobacco is an addictive substance.
Smokers who use other drugs such as heroin, methadone, amphetamines and barbiturates rate tobacco as their most addictive drug. Smokers who start smoking when young are less likely to quit than those who begin when older. A quarter of smokers believe that smoking is not harmful. Much of this advertising appears to be directed at recruiting children to smoke. Around 140 Australians die each year from lung cancer caused by breathing other people's smoke.