Killing You Softly!

I read a news titled Anti-Smoking Advice at Funeral at Yahoo website. The news is about a life-long smoker, Albert Whittamore or also known as Dick, died last month at aged of 85 after suffering from emphysema (click on the link to know more about it), progressive disease of the lung that primarily causes shortness of breath. Dick blamed he had the disease because of his smoking habit. His dying wish was honoured when he had the words "Smoking Killed Me" placed on signs in his hearse as he wanted to warn people about the dangerous of smoking.

As we noticed, smoking bring lots of negative impacts to our health. It can causes lung cancer, heart disease, blindness, emphysema, mouth and throat cancer, peripheral vascular disease, amputation and etc, but people still did not realize about the dangerous of smoking. According to World Health Organization (WHO), the top 10 causes of death are:

1- Lower Respiratory Infections

2- Coronary Heart Disease

3- Stroke and Other Cerebrovascular Diseases

4- Chronic bstructive Pulmonary Disease

5- Diarrheal Diseases

6- HIV/AIDS

7- Tuberculosis

8- Trachea, Bronchus, Lung Cancers,

9- Road Traffic Accidents

10- Prematurity and Low Birth Weight

Smoking is not in the list? Yes, this is because smoking is not a disease but smoking causes 7 of the top 10 causes of death in the list above which are coronary heart disease, stroke, lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, HIV susceptibility, tuberculosis, lung cancer, prematurity, and low birth weight. These diseases are all in the top 10 causes of death! All these diseases are related to smoking because cigarettes and tobacco products contains carcinogenic and mutagenic substances. This puts smoking as the second major cause of death worldwide!

These are some pictures caused by smoking:

Mouth Cancer

Amputation

Lung Cancer

This video is an animation of the dangers and effects to respiratory system by smoking.

Ex-Health Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Chua Jui Meng, said during his speech at the Grand Opening of H.S.C Medical Centre, that more than 10,000 Malaysians died from smoking-related illnesses every year and 30% of those above the age of 30 suffer from up to 40 kinds of illnesses which include heart problems and 57 types of cancer. He also mentioned that according to World Health Organization (WHO) report, more than 100,000 youths started smoking daily. In Malaysia, government has take a lot of actions to aware people about this death candy such as

'Tak Nak Merokok Campaign' (Say No to Cigarettes),

produced advertisements on printed and electronic media

and even, government has put the picture of the disease on the cigarette's box. Sadly, all these actions are not effective.

I had a conversation with my ex-housemate about this thing. The conversation goes like this:

Me: I'm out to shop.

Friend: Can you get me a pack of cigarette.

Me: What cigarette?

Friend: Marlboro.

Me: Marlboro light, original, menthol or menthol light?

Friend: Original.

Me: 20's? 14's?

Friend: 20's

Me: Soft pack or hard pack?

Friend: Hard.

Me: Lung cancer, mouth cancer, neck cancer, miscarriage, premature birth or gangrene?

Friend: .......

Ok.. I made up this conversation.. hahaha!!

As a conclusion, smoking cause death. Therefore, the only option you have is to quit. Choose to live! Don't let the fear of smoking and the disease take over your life. You can visit this page (people die from smoking/stopsmokingbasics.com) to learn more about this issue.

P/S: I wish to credit Youtube, Yahoo, ITIM site, Cancerinstitute NSW site and my sister in Malaysia, Tun Husna for the videos and images used here.