Every 30 of May the world celebrates the anti-smoking day. But, tobacco is still considered the main cause of death.

An anniversary to remind humans of the damage this product causes at all levels. Smoking is a prehistorical fact. The first who visited the new world helped spread it in Europe and to the rest of the world.Then tobacco won popularity. Nowadays, tobacco kills more than any other disease. It not only kills smokers, but also those who do not smoke but are exposed to it. Scientific research revealed the huge number of toxic substences tobacco involves.
According to the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association:


Smoking is the single most preventable cause of mortality, responsible for one in every six deaths.

Every 13 seconds, someone dies from tobacco.

There are over 400,000 deaths caused by smoking each year in the United States.

Smoking causes more deaths every year than fires, automobile crashes, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, AIDS, murders and suicides COMBINED.

Smoking causes nearly 90% of all lung cancer and throat cancer.

Smoking causes 32% of fatal cancers, 21% of fatal heart disease and 88% of fatal chronic lung disease.

Lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as the leading cancer killer among women.

Smoking is associated with cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, pancreas, uterus, cervix, kidney and bladder.

Smoking is the principle cause of coronary heart disease - the most common cause of death in the United States.

Smoking causes atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and stroke.

People who smoke a pack of cigarettes a day have more than twice the risk of heart attack as compared to people who have never smoked. And people who smoke two or more packs have a risk of heart attack three times greater.

Passive smoke, commonly referred to as second-hand smoke (or environmental tobacco smoke), kills some 50,000 Americans each year, making it the third-leading cause of preventable death.

One nonsmoker dies of second-hand smoke for every eight smokers.


In a country like Morocco, where unemployment causes depression and frustration, inciting even minors to smoke, unable to resist tobacco temptation, poverty is worsening. Addiction becomes slavery. While most of them cannot afford their minimal daily needs.
Tobacco is one of the main contributors to poverty in the third world, where the industry found at last a thriving market. While the international companies harvest revenues, local people lose their health and their money.
Most politicians smoke or share interests with this dirty business. That is why they wink at this catastrophe. This is a real epidemic, not to say a pandemic.
Let this anniversary be an opportunity for us all not just to meditate upon this social problem, but also urge smokers to quit tobacco and advise young people against even thinking of it.