Health Factors

1. Nicotine increases the heart rate and at the same time constricts the surface blood vessels, putting more stress on the heart. Result: Greater incidence of hardening of the arteries, heart problems, and heart attacks, among smokers than non-smokers.

2. Smoking increases the risk of death from lung cancer by approximately ten to twenty times depending on the heaviness of the smoking habit. Smoking is also one of the affecting causes of larynx, esophagus, lip, mouth, pancreas, kidney, and bladder cancer.

3. Chronic bronchitis and emphysema affect smokers from three to twenty times more than non-smokers, depending on how heavily they smoke.

4. Smokers experience twice as many colds and related sicknesses as non-smokers.

5. Statistical death rates from all bodily causes for men aged 45-64 are twice as high for smokers than for non-smokers.

6. Women who smoke give birth to smaller babies with greater percentages of both pre- and post-natal diseases and complications than non-smokers.

7. "Tar" from cigarette smoke will coat the respiratory tract to the lungs and completely cover the natural microscopic hairs or cilia which line this tract, whose whipping action push out foreign particles from the lungs. Result: a great increase of foreign particles in the lungs and coughing to try to clear them out.

8. "Tar" will settle in the lungs and coat its air sacs, thereby polluting the lungs and gradually reducing breathing ability. Result: shortness of breath, greater stress on the body, especially during hard, physical exercise.

Cleanliness Factors

9. Smoking yellows both teeth and fingers. Its smell remains in clothes, rooms, cars, hair, breath, etc.

10. Cigarette butts and ashes must be disposed of, resulting in dirty ashtrays, cups, floors, parking lots, or whatever else is convenient, is the result.

Danger Factor

11. Smoking rates as one of the highest cause factors in car, home, and building fires.

Environmental Factors

12. Smokers pollute the air for non-smokers in any confined area, their smoke also penetrating others' noses, lungs, clothing, etc.

13. Smoking rates as one of the prime causes of forest fires. Cigarette butts also pollute many trails, streams, and other native landscapes.

Cost Factor

14. If an average pack of cigarettes in Canada costs $3.50, a person smoking one pack a day has a habit which costs $1,280 a year; two packs a day costs $2,560 a year. Smoking two packs a day for five years literally burns up $12,800 in that time.

Scriptural Factors

15. The Bible does not refer directly to smoking, as smoking is not encountered in European history until the fifteenth century. The North American Indian introduced smoking to early European explorers and settlers, and through this means it became part of our culture. However, the following scriptural references are applicable: I Corinthians 6: 12,6: 19-20, 10:31, and Romans 14:21 (see corresponding page).