I recently had to give a persuasive speech in speech class. I chose the topic of smoking and why not to. Going into this speech i knew that smoking was detrimental to you and also that it was a bad habit to be into and that it kills many people. But never had i realized how many people are hurt by smoking. Over 488,000 people die each year in a direct result from smoking. An additional 38,000 people die due to second hand smoke. That is over half a million people dying each year because of smoking including about 40,000 innocent people that do not even smoke. These numbers are truly startling. Also i found that 1 in every 5 deaths in the US is smoking related. That means that 20% of our deceased population dies due to smoking complications. These numbers are also astronomical and as the Department of Health says, 48% of all men smoke and 12% of all women smoke. That means that 30% of our population smokes. These numbers astonished me when i saw them so i figured i would share them. In addition, you have to take into account that the number of deaths each year, do not include all of the people that are sitting into hospital beds, crippled by smoking. Hundreds of thousands of people are living off of machines due to smoking and you have to ask yourself if that is truly living at all. I just want these numbers to inform you of the risk of smoking and i hope that they are able to make a difference.
