Part One: Introduction Part Two: Dangers of Tobacco Use Part Three: Industry Marketing Part Four: The Store Alert Report Card - Store Info - Exterior Observations - Interior Observations - Final Score Part Five: Notes on Data Collection Part Six: What Now? home » retail store survey » store alert training guide » part two Store Alert Training Guide Part Two: Dangers of Tobacco Use Tobacco use remains the number one preventable cause of death in the US, claiming over 440,000 lives each year 1. Cigarette smoking has been linked to many kinds of cancer, as well as heart disease, stroke and lung disease 1. In fact, one-third to one-half of the estimated 45 million American smokers will die of a tobacco-related illness 2. In addition to the 400,000 smokers that die annually of illnesses related to their own tobacco use, an additional estimated 40,000 US citizens die of tobacco-related illnesses due to someone else's smoke (secondhand smoke). Secondhand smoke has been shown to increase the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and nasal sinus cancers in non-smokers 3. Children of parents who smoke have a higher incidence of asthma, ear infections, bronchitis, pneumonia and colds. Children of smokers are also more likely to become smokers themselves, placing them at risk for future tobacco-related diseases 4-6. Ninety percent of all smokers start smoking before the age of 18. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug and over one-third of all kids who ever try smoking will become regular, daily smokers. In fact, over 26% of children are current smokers by the time they leave high school. In the 1999 nationwide Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 9th and 12th graders, over half of all youth smokers reported that they purchased their own cigarettes. Nearly a quarter of youth smokers reported that they bought cigarettes directly from the store, and thirty percent said they gave money to others to buy the cigarettes for them. A little over 4% said that they shoplifted or stole their cigarettes. If these trends continue, over 6.4 million children who are alive today will ultimately die of a tobacco-related illness. If this situation makes you angry, work with us to change it! For more information on tobacco, health risks, and youth smoking, check out: Center for Tobacco Free Kids: www.tobaccofreekids.org Centers for Disease Control: www.cdc.gov/tobacco Online Tobacco Encyclopedia: www.tobaccopedia.org Part Three: Industry Marketing » Footnotes: Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Annual Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lose, and Economic Costs -- United States 1995-1999. MMWR. April 12, 2002 2002;51(14):300-303. McGuinness MK FW. Actual causes of death in the United States. JAMA. 1993 1993;270:2207-2212. California Environmental Protection Agency. Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke: California Environmental Protection Agency; 1999. DiFranza J.R. RAL. Morbidity & Mortality in Children Associated with the Use of Tobacco Products By Other People. Pediatrics. April 1997 1997;97(4):560-568. Osler M ea. Maternal smoking during childhood and increased risk of smoking in young adulthood. International Journal of Epidemiology. August 1995 1995;24(4):710-714. Bauman K ea. Effect of parental smoking classification on the association between parental and adolescent smoking. Addictive Behaviors. 1990;15(5):413-422.
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This website is based on a website originally developed by Battelle Memorial Institute pursuant to grants from the National Cancer Institute (Grant Numbers 5R01CA086232 and 5R01CA093955). Its contents, however, are solely the responsibility of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or Battelle Memorial Institute