Overview
How is smoking harmful?
Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of death and disability in the United States. Tobacco use, especially smoking, contributes to more than 430,000 deaths each year. 1 Use these interactive tools to find your risk of heart attack due to smoking and to find out how smoking affects your life span.

Smoking can harm not only the smoker but also the smoker's family members and coworkers.

Tobacco use greatly increases a person's risk for many serious health problems, such as heart attack and stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, peripheral arterial disease, and many cancers (including those of the mouth, throat, esophagus, and lung). Smoking tobacco worsens asthma symptoms and causes shortness of breath. It also causes impotence and infertility.
A person who smokes increases his or her family members' and coworkers' risk of lung cancer and heart disease because of secondhand smoke. The risk of his or her children dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or having asthma, frequent ear infections, and respiratory infections is also increased. If the children already have asthma or allergies, a parent's smoking may cause these conditions to get worse.
If you smoke, your children are more likely to start smoking.
Smoking increases the risk of problem pregnancies affecting both the mother and fetus.

Are smokeless tobacco products harmful?
Smokeless tobacco products include chewing tobacco and snuff. Many people use these products because they think they are safer than smoking. However, the use of smokeless tobacco products has many of the same risks as smoking. All tobacco products contain nicotine, which is addicting.

Smokeless tobacco products cause physical problems and disease.
Smokeless tobacco causes the formation of white, leathery patches or lesions (leukoplakia) on the inside of the cheek or on the gum after 3 to 5 years of use. These white lesions can eventually develop into cancer of the mouth (oral cancer), involving the lip, tongue, or cheek.

People who use smokeless tobacco have 2 to 3 times more cases of gum disease and other severe dental problems than people who do not smoke.

How can I stop using tobacco?
Because the nicotine in tobacco is addicting, stopping the use of tobacco is more difficult than simply changing a habit. Those who successfully quit using tobacco usually use a combination of strategies that may include:

Professional counseling, either by telephone or in person.
The use of medications, to help overcome the addiction to nicotine.
Participation in a proven smoking cessation program.
Having a support group of peers who are also quitting or who do not smoke.
The use of more than one of these strategies greatly increases your chances of successfully quitting.

Quitting tobacco use may require several attempts. Most people who smoke make 5 to 7 attempts at quitting before succeeding. Use this interactive tool to find out your readiness to quit smoking.

Will medications help me stop using tobacco?
Most people find it hard to stop using tobacco because nicotine is addicting. If you smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes a day, you may be able to quit without using medication. If you smoke more than this, medication such as nicotine replacement therapy may be helpful.

Use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or bupropion (Zyban) nearly doubles your chances of quitting tobacco use over trying to quit without NRT.

How can I help someone else stop using tobacco?
If you know a person who smokes and you want to help him or her decide to quit, begin by realizing that a person is more likely to quit successfully after hearing the message from several different people, such as family, friends, and health professionals. Think of your comments about smoking as only one event that encourages him or her to move toward quitting. When encouraging a person to stop using tobacco, be diplomatic rather than confrontational or demanding. Give the person reasons for quitting that are as important to him or her as they are to you.

If a person who smokes indicates that he or she would like your support while trying to quit, there are several ways you can help.

Distract the person when he or she is tempted to use tobacco.
Tolerate the irritability that a person who stops using tobacco commonly experiences.
Offer to contact the person regularly to check on how he or she is doing.

If you have quit smoking, talk to the person often about the changes you've noticed in your health and sense of well-being. Talk about the times when you found it most difficult not to smoke and what you did to get yourself through those situations.
If the person starts using tobacco again, don't give up on him or her. It takes most people 5 to 7 tries to stop using tobacco for good. Continue to give encouragement and support in the person's attempts to quit.