Up in Smoke!

Related story: quit smoking

OK, so you’ve heard the one(s) about how smoking causes emphysema, cancer and heart disease. And that it can irreversibly damage your lungs, heart, urinary tract, digestive tract, eyes, throat, bones and joints and skin.

But did you know that:

• Legends Humphrey Bogart, Yul Brynner, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., James Bond writer Ian Fleming, Betty Grable, Steve McQueen, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra and Lana Turner (among many others) all died of smoking-related illnesses

• Smoking in women can contribute to infertility, early menopause, breast cancer and (eeek!) cancer of the vulva. Women who smoke and are on the Pill are also at risk for blood clots, strokes and heart attacks

• Men who smoke are at risk of, among other horrible things, reduced blood circulation and atherosclerosis. Huh? Ruined blood vessels means male smokers won’t be able to get a full erection and therefore, their bits will look quite a bit smaller

• Social smoking is also dodgy. A recent report from the white coats reveals that women who smoke only three fags a day double their chance of heart attack. For men, it’s between six and nine

• Studies have shown that smokers seem to have less sex—less often and less enjoyably, compared to non-smokers

• There are 43 elements contained in cigarettes that have been found to cause cancer. An average cigarette has such delightful ingredients as Acetone, Ammonia, Benzene, Cadmium, Carbon Monoxide, Formaldehyde, Hydrogen Cyanide, Lead, Mercury and Tar

• If you smoke 20 fags a day it will cost you £1,642.50 annually. Of which the government takes £1,292.18 in duty or VAT. You could spend that on about 8 flights to Ibizia during the summer months

Did ya? Bet you didn’t.

Besides, it really doesn’t look cool, it makes your teeth and breath go all manky, ensures that you will have to do twice as much laundry to get the stench out and it is an addiction. Even “social” smokers have a habitual rather than clinical addiction.

So isn’t it time you quit?

Related story: quit smoking