Choosing to be Tobacco Free
T/F The longer one uses tobacco, the greater the risks to one's health.
What is true?
What's the main ingredient in tobacco that causes addiction?
What is nicotine?
Smokeless tobacco (such as chewing tobacco) is less harmful than smoking.
What is false? (Chewing tobacco still releases many harmful chemicals into your body and increases your risks for many diseases just like smoking tobacco - including lung cancer!)
T/F: Vaping liquids (used in e-cigarettes, etc.) are a healthy alternative to smoking tobacco because they're mostly water, don't contain chemicals, and are not addictive.
What is false? (Juuls/E-cigarettes/Vaping contains many harmful chemicals including those that cause addiction!)
T/F: Tobacco use can cause you to have better endurance in things like sports and exercise.
What is false? (Smoking decreases your ability to breathe, coordinate your muscles, and build your muscles. Therefore, your endurance actually decreases greatly compared to someone who does not smoke.)
This lung condition, which involves "attacks" which cause wheezing and difficulty catching one's breath, is severely worsened by smoking.
What is asthma?
T/F: Tobacco is the cause of 480,000 deaths yearly worldwide.
What is true?
T/F: Juuling/vaping/using e-cigarettes can harm adolescent brain development, which continues into the early to mid-20s.
What is true? (This is permanent brain damage, which cannot be reversed!)
A recent study was done involving smoking teens. Of those who started smoking as a teenager, what percentage of those were still using some type of tobacco product 8 years later? (Possible answers: 5% 10% 25% 50% 75% 100%)
What is 75%? (That's 3 out of every 4! Addiction makes quitting extremely difficult. Nearly all who start using tobacco will underestimate how hard it is to quit.)
Tobacco increases the risk of ______ (heart problem) and _____ (brain problem) due to blockages of the blood supply in those organs.
What is heart attack and stroke?
More than ________ people in the US are living with a disease caused by smoking. (Possible answers: 10,000 100,000 1 million 16 million)
What is 16 million?
T/F: A single cigarette contains 2,000 toxic chemicals.
What is false? (A single cigarette contains about 4,800 toxic chemicals.)
Name a health problem secondhand smoke can cause in young children.
Possible answers: Ear infections, asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, coughing, sneezing, shortness of breath, SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
Tobacco use can cause emphysema (breakdown of lung tissue), and what other lung condition? (Think infection in your throat/lungs.)
Possible answers: What is bronchitis or pneumonia?
Each day about how many people under the age of 18 in the US try their first cigarette? (Possible answers: 100 200 500 1,000 2,000)
What is 2,000?
What form of tobacco causes gum loss, cancers, stained teeth, and oral sores?
What is chewing tobacco?
What are the two main methods for quitting smoking?
Possible correct answers: patches, gum, therapy, cold-turkey, and medication
Name one of the three major medical conditions that can happen to the brain because of tobacco use.
Possible answers: What are tumors, cancer, or stroke?
If cigarette smoking continues at the current rate among youth in this country, ___________ of today’s Americans younger than 18 will die early from a smoking-related illness. (Possible answers: 750,000 1.5 million 5.6 million 100 million)
What is 5.6 million? (That’s about 1 of every 13 American kids!)
What is the term for the kind of smoke produced by a burning cigarette/cigar AND/OR smoke exhaled by someone smoking tobacco?
What is second-hand smoke? (This smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals, including hundreds that are toxic and about 70 that can cause CANCER.)