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Smoking: a deadly habit
Read the following passage and answer the related questions
Why should there be an article on smoking in an issue on drug rehabilitation? Surely,
smoking is a pleasant social habit! Advertisements for smoking lead us to believe that it
helps us to feel in control of our lives, it helps us to relax and makes us attractive to the
opposite sex!
1. ___________________
Well, smoking is apparently the most dangerous habit we can have. Nothing else that we
choose to do in our lives is as dangerous to our health. Smoking kills one in four people
and disables many more. On average, smoking reduces life expectancy by eight years.
The WHO says that about 3 million people are dying each year from diseases caused by
smoking tobacco. The harmful effects of smoking take many years to develop. There is
no immediate effect on health. Medical experts say that it takes 25 years of increased
smoking within a country for the dramatic effects to show on the country’s death rate.
In developing countries 40–60% of men smoke and 2–10% of women. In the industri-
alised countries fewer men now smoke (30–40%) and more women – especially young
women – (20–40%). Women who smoke, face greater health risks than men. As well as
cancer and heart disease, they reduce their ability to have children and are more likely
to have an abnormal baby. The children of mothers who smoke are shorter, slower to
learn, and more likely to suffer from chest infections. They are also more likely to smoke,
themselves.
2. _____________________
Nothing is more irritating to nonsmokers (especially if they have struggled to give up
smoking, themselves) than passive smoking. This is when other people are forced to
breathe in cigarette fumes from smokers when sharing the same bus, train, office or
workplace. Passive smoking is now known to damage the health of non-smokers – espe-
cially if they regularly breathe in other people’s smoke. About 40 countries around the
world have so far banned smoking in the workplace. Others are preparing to do the
same.
3. _______________________
Why are so many people continuing to smoke? Why are so many addicted to this habit?
Huge numbers of people see smoking as a social habit, not realising that, in fact, they
are addicted to nicotine – the drug contained in tobacco. Young people smoke because
it makes them feel grown up or because their friends smoke. The sale of cigarettes brings