What has been the effect of this ‘growing epidemic’? The accompanying box gives some sobering food for thought. The list is by no means exhaustive, but the message is clear: Addiction to tobacco is both powerful and costly. It is a defiling habit that damages the health of both the addicted and those around them.

[Box on page 12]

The Cost of Smoking

◻ Tobacco causes more suffering and death among adults than any other toxic material in the environment.

◻ The worldwide cost in lives now approaches 2.5 million per year, almost 5 percent of all deaths.

◻ Health expenditures plus economic losses in [the United States] range from $38 thousand million to $95 thousand million, or from $1.25 to $3.15 per pack. These totals do not include the cost of tobacco itself​—about $30 thousand million per year.

◻ Passive smokers are perhaps three times as likely to die of lung cancer as they would be if they were not exposed to smoke.

◻ Smoking by mothers diminishes the physical and mental capabilities of their children, and in many countries more than one fifth of the children are exposed to smoke in this way.