Thanks to years of research, the links between smoking and cancer are now very clear. Smoking is the single biggest cause of cancer in the world, and accounts for one in four UK cancer deaths.

In the UK, smoking kills five times more people than road accidents, overdoses, murder, suicide and HIV all put together.

Smoking causes nine in ten cases of lung cancer. Lung cancer has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers, and is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK.

Smoking also increases the risk of over a dozen other cancers including cancers of the mouth, larynx (voice box), oesophagus (food pipe), liver, pancreas, stomach, kidney, bladder and cervix, as well as some types of leukaemia.

The good news is that most of these deaths are preventable, by giving up smoking.

The fact is that half of all smokers eventually die from cancer, or other smoking-related illnesses. And a quarter of smokers die in middle age, between 35 and 69.

How does smoking cause cancer?
Tobacco smoke contains about 70 different cancer-causing substances. When you inhale smoke, these chemicals enter your lungs and spread around the rest of your body.

Scientists have shown that these chemicals can damage DNA and change important genes. This causes cancer by making your cells grow and multiply out of control.

The cost of smoking
Smoking is very expensive. At today's rates, smoking around twenty cigarettes a day for the next twenty years would cost you over £30,000.

Young people and smoking
Each day 450 young people in the UK take up smoking. By the age of 11, one third of children have experimented with smoking. And by 15 around one in four teenagers are regular smokers. Since the 1980s girls have been more likely to smoke regularly than boys.

Young people who smoke often become regular adult smokers. They also suffer immediate health consequences from smoking. Young smokers are more susceptible to coughs, increased phlegm, wheeziness and shortness of breath. Some important facts:

• One in two lifelong smokers will be killed by their addiction.
• The younger a smoker starts the more likely they are to be killed by their addiction.
• Someone who starts smoking at 15 is three times as likely to die from a smoking related cancer than someone who starts smoking in their mid-20s.

The new law for selling tobacco
From 1st October 2007 the law for selling tobacco will change.

It will be illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18 (an increase from 16) in England and Wales. It is expected that the change in law will also come into effect in Scotland from the same date.

Products affected will include cigarettes, cigars, loose rolling tobacco and rolling papers sold over the counter or from vending machines.

Useful websites:
www.cancerresearchuk.org
www.tobacco18.co.uk
www.gosmokefree.co.uk
www.smokeispoison.com
www.quit.org.uk
www.ash.org.uk
www.bhf.org.uk