Clear the Air

The Facts

• Smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders and suicides, combined.


• Secondhand smoke is the 3rd leading cause of death behind active smoking and alcohol abuse.


• Smoking is considered a health hazard because tobacco smoke contains nicotine, a poisonous alkaloid, and other harmful substances such as carbon monoxide, acrolein, ammonia, prussic acid, and a number of aldehydes and tars; in all, tobacco contains some 4,000 chemicals.


• On average, a pack-a-day smoker spends about $800 - $1,200 a year on cigarettes. A recent study found that people who were exposed to smoke in the workplace were 17 percent more likely to develop lung cancer than those who were not exposed.


• Involuntary smoking has many non-fatal but serious effects; breathing secondhand smoke makes the eyes and nose burn, and can cause headaches and nausea in nonsmokers. These irritants can have a major impact on employees' morale, productivity and sense of well being.


• Cigarettes kill 1 in 3 long-term users.


• Cigarette companies spend more than $9.5 billion each year to promote their products-or more than $26 million a day-to advertise and promote cigarettes.


• Ohio ranks 8th in percentages of adults who smoke at 26.6%.


• After the latest census, Ohio was ranked 12th for Smoking Attributable Mortality Rates.


• The smoking rate for pregnant mothers in Ohio is 18.8 percent, the 6th worst rate in the nation.


• At present, the only means of effectively eliminating health risks associated with indoor exposure is to ban smoking activity. Adverse health effects for the occupants of the smoking room cannot be controlled by ventilation.