2. “As discovered by alcoholism and alcohol abuse
statistics and facts, even though alcohol has been used
in a number of diverse ways throughout history that can
be called "beneficial" it was, however, observed
thousands of years ago that excessive drinking and
abuse led to social as well as to personal problems”.
More than one-half of American adults have a close
family member who has or has had alcoholism.
Alcohol is a factor in nearly half of America's murders,
suicides and accidental deaths.
3. In the United States, roughly 50,000 cases of alcohol
poisoning are reported each year, and approximately once
every week, someone dies from this preventable
condition.
65 people each day die on our highways due to alcohol.
Before the drinking age was raised to twenty one In 1988,
25,000 Americans were killed in auto accidents involving
alcohol. More than 500,000 were injured.
Drunk drivers are responsible for 50% of highway
fatalities.
4. Alcohol is a factor in nearly half of America's murders,
suicides and accidental deaths.
Underage drinking costs Americans nearly $53 billion
annually. If this cost were shared equally by each
congressional district, the amount would total more
than $120 million per district.
About half of state prison inmates and 40% of federal
prisoners incarcerated for committing violent crimes
report they were under the influence of alcohol or
drugs at the time of their offense.
5. There is enough nicotine in four or five cigarettes to kill an average
adult if ingested whole. Most smokers take in only one or two
milligrams of nicotine per cigarette however, with the remainder
being burned off.
There are 1.1 billion smokers in the world today, and if current
trends continue, that number is expected to increase to 1.6 billion
by the year 2025.
China is home to 300 million smokers who consume
approximately 1.7 trillion cigarettes a year, or 3 million cigarettes a
minute.
6. Radioactive lead and polonium are both present
in low levels in cigarette smoke.
Hydrogen cyanide, one of the toxic byproducts
present in cigarette smoke, was used as a
genocidal chemical agent duringWorld War II.
Secondhand smoke contains more than 50
cancer-causing chemical compounds, 11 of
which are known to be group 1 carcinogens
7. Half of all long-term smokers will die a
tobacco-related death.
Every eight seconds, a human life is lost to
tobacco use somewhere in the world.That
translates to approximately 5 million deaths
annually.
8. Tobacco and alcohol are massively used drugs and impact
almost everyone in the world directly or indirectly.
People use these products because they are enjoyable and
overlook the health effects associated with using them.
Tobacco and alcohol are the leading causes of death in the
U.S.
It will be very hard to wane the world off of these products
because of the simple fact that people enjoy them.
