Tobacco

REFERENCES: TOBACCO DEATH TOLL Human Resources Development and Operations Policy HRO DISSEMINATION NOTES Number 1, February, 1993

TOBACCO:

• 1.Added to all the most fearsome plagues (the Black Death, smallpox, malaria, and tuberculosis), a man-made plague--diseases resulting from the smoking, chewing and snuffing of tobacco--is now the leading scource of death in the twenty-first century.
• 2.Approximately five trillion cigarettes are produced each year.1,000 cigarettes for each man, woman, and child on earth.
• 3.unlike most microbial plagues, damage to the human body from cigarettes progresses slowly
• 4.Tobacco is highly addictive.
• 5.people who have smoked for many years show grossly higher death rates among smokers than among non-smokers.
• 6.Smokers lose an average of 20-25 years of non-smoker life expectancy.
• 7.Children whose parents smoke experience more respiratory symptoms and have an increased frequency of bronchitis and pneumonia
• 8.The annual global tobacco death toll is already about three million--about 1 million in developing countries-- and will rise to more than ten million by the 2020s according to current trends
• 9.Of all the people aged under 20 alive today in China, 50 million will die prematurely from tobacco.
• 10.United States, direct health care costs associated with smoking were estimated in 1980 to be US$16 billion (7% of total national health care costs) and indirect mortality and morbidity costs were US$26 billion.

Alchohol

• 1.U.S. per capita ethanol consumption for those 14 years or older is 2.6 gallons/year
• 2.There are 200,000 alcohol related deaths per year in the U.S., 11% of the total deaths, these include traffic injury, suicide, cirrhosis
• 3.Death rates for "drinkers" are 2 to 6 fold those of non-drinkers
• 4.Ten percent of the adult population is estimated to have significant drinking problems
• 5.In at least 50% of spouse abuse case and 33% of child abuse cases, the perpetrator is intoxicated. Suicide rates are 30 times higher in alcoholics than in non-alcoholics.
• 6.Thirty-five to sixty-five percent of all fatal auto accidents and up to 25% of non-fatal accidents involve alcohol.
• 7.On the average, blood alcohol declines by 15 mg/d.l. per hour or one hour to clear a bottle of beer or shot of liquor.
• 8.Health consequences of alcoholism include: trauma, liver disease (hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatoma), cancer (as a cocarcinogen), pancreatitis, esophagitis, gastritis and ulcers, central and peripheralnervous toxicity, testicular atrophy and feminization, bone marrow depression (macrocytic anemia), malnutrition, and birth defects.
• 9.Health consequences of alcoholism include: trauma, liver disease (hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatoma), cancer (as a cocarcinogen), pancreatitis, esophagitis, gastritis and ulcers, central and peripheralnervous toxicity, testicular atrophy and feminization, bone marrow depression (macrocytic anemia), malnutrition, and birth defects.

Marijuana

• 1.No search engine matches directly to marijuana and death rates.
• 2.Gov. Johnson noted survey estimates showing about 70 million people 12 years and older who have used marijuana
• 3.deaths from all illegal drugs combined, including cocaine and heroin, are fewer than 20,000 annually vs.450,000 Americans die each year from tobacco or alcohol use "not including related deaths.
• 4.“drug-induced” yearly deaths at 14,000, and regards the toll for “drug-related” deaths at 50,000 annually.
• 5.There are about 90 million current drinkers and 55 million smokers