Facts about quitting smoking

Every hour of every day, someone in Massachusetts dies from cigarettes.

This figure includes the 8,230 people who die each year in Massachusetts from smoking cigarettes (see SAMMEC report).

It also includes the roughly 1,000 people in Massachusetts who die from secondhand smoke—the state’s weighted share of the number of people in the United States who die from secondhand smoke in a year (see Surgeon General’s Report on Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke).

The result is a total of 9,230 deaths each year in Massachusetts due to cigarettes. Divide that number by 365 days and then 24 hours in each day—and the result is that every hour of every day, someone in Massachusetts dies from cigarettes.

Factoids

• More than two-thirds of all college graduates who have ever smoked have now quit.
• Smoking is an addiction. Tobacco smoke contains nicotine, a drug that is addictive and can make it very hard, but not impossible, to quit.
• Each year, there are more than 440,000 deaths in the U.S from smoking-related illnesses. Smoking greatly increases your risks for lung cancer and many other cancers.
• Smoking harms not just the smoker, but their family members, coworkers and others who breathe the smoker's secondhand smoke.
• Among infants under 18 months of age, secondhand smoke is associated with as many as 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia each (The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, 2007)
• Secondhand smoke from a parent's cigarette can trigger a child’s asthma attacks and cause ear infections.  Children who breathe secondhand smoke get coughs, bronchitis, and pneumonia more often.
• If both parents smoke, a teenager is two times more likely to smoke than if the parents are both non-smokers. In households where only one parent smokes, teenagers are also more likely to start smoking.
• Pregnant women who smoke are more likely to deliver babies whose weights are too low for the babies' good health. If all women quit smoking during pregnancy, about 4,800 fewer new babies would die each year. (The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, 2007)
• Many of the effects of smoking are reversible within days or weeks, including non-chronic respiratory problems and symptoms associated with cardiovascular disease. The risk of heart attack returns to a nonsmoker’s level after 3 years.
• Lung function can improve slightly within a few months of quitting. Your risk of death from COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) goes down with continued abstinence.
• The risk of having a stroke or a brain aneurysm (bleeding in the brain) goes down by 30-50% in quitters.

Read more about what happens when you quit smoking in Benefits of Quitting.

You can download and print information on Smoking & Quitting by clicking on the links below. All documents are available to be viewed online through your browser as an Adobe Acrobat document. (If you need the Acrobat plug-in, click on the link below.)

Life after Cigarettes (pamphlet)

Life After Cigarettes Quit Smoking Cards

Facts About Smoking