Smoking

Smoking can shorten your life by 10 years or more. It's also a very expensive habit... costing up to thousands of pounds a year. So why do people still smoke? It's very addictive. Many people who smoke regularly have tried to stop many times.

Reduce your risk of cancer

Avoid smoking. Quit if you do, and don't start if you are tempted. More than 120,000 people a year in the UK die from smoking-related diseases such as cancer, asthma and chronic heart disease. Most of them, like you or your friends, started during their school years.

Also, several hundred people in the UK die from lung cancer caused by passive smoking each year. Tell your friends you don't want to suffer for their rubbish habit!

What does smoking do to you? Check out our Flash movie to find out.

Did you know?

More than 80% of smokers take up the habit as teenagers.

Smoking kills around five times more people in the UK than road traffic accidents.

What's in tobacco/cigarette smoke

Cigarette smoke contains over 4000 chemicals, many of them harmful. The three most harmful ingredients in cigarette smoke are nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar.

• Nicotine is an addictive drug. This means that your body and mind will become so used to it that you'll need to keep having it just to feel okay. It speeds up the heart and increases blood pressure. In large quantities nicotine is extremely poisonous - it can even be used to kill insects! Do you really want that in your body?
• Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas. It reduces the body's ability to carry oxygen, which in turn increases the risk of heart disease and other health problems.
• Tar is a black, sticky liquid like that used in road surfacing. You can't see tar in cigarette smoke but in the lungs the tar condenses into tiny specks. These join together to form a black coating. Many of the substances in tar damage the lungs, causing breathing problems such as bronchitis and often lung cancer.