Facts on File : Smoking
Ingestion of tobacco products through cigarettes. Smoking is an addiction that many people acquire as a teenager or young adult, often because of peer pressure and a desire to seem older or sophisticated. The individual then develops a nicotine addiction that is usually very difficult to break. Smoking causes many serious health problems over both the short term and the long term of an individual's life and it causes about 20 percent of deaths in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, and lung diseases such as bronchitis and emphysema. In 2010, about 19 percent of the adult population in the United States were smokers and an estimated 15 percent of the population ages 18 years and older smoked cigarettes every day, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Males are more likely to smoke every day (16.4 percent) than females (13.7 percent). Poor white males ages 45–64 years old are the most likely to smoke cigarettes every day.
Adamec, C., & Gwinnell, E. (2016). Smoking. In The Encyclopedia of Addictions and Addictive Behaviors, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File. Retrieved May 22, 2016, from http://online.infobase.com.db.corpus.wa.edu.au/HRC/Search/Details/95313?q=smoking