Ian Lloyd
Pharmacist
Peoples Pharmacy

.....Why do these types of articles usually run in January? Perhaps it’s because the start of the year is a time for resolutions. It’s a new year, so let’s try something fresh and new. Perhaps one should take up jogging, knit a sweater, clean the garage, read ‘War and Peace’, or just floss their teeth everyday. Quitting smoking (or as those in health care say ‘smoking cessation’) seems to be a great idea for a resolution. I have a better idea; if you really want to quit smoking, rip out this article and tape it to the April section of your calendar. January is a terrible time for resolutions: its cold, your indoors most days, it’s stressful (with Christmas bills, maybe?) and full of celebrations. This way you can agree to other New Year’s resolutions. Then when April rolls around, and you have forgotten what you resolved to do in January, you can start fresh. Sounds good, right? Great! Now lets start scaring you a little bit. There are so many reasons to quit smoking. Lets mention a few: smoking is really bad for your health, it can harm the people around you and it can make you smell bad. It is also very expensive; lets do some math, shall we? Lets assume you

smoke one pack a day for 1 year, or 5 years. Lets also assume that a pack of cigarettes costs $7. Instead of putting this money up in smoke, so to speak, you could put it in the bank at 4% interest, how much would you make? After one year it will be $2600, not bad. After 5 years $14,000! After 10 years you will have saved $32,000!! Want to know some
bigger money numbers? In 2003, Imperial Tobacco earned over 1 billion in pre-tax earning. Lets get to the real scary part. Which is healthier for you, smoking or sucking on the tailpipe of a car? Hard to tell, but you won’t get lead from gasoline unlike cigarette smoke. You will also inhale carbon monoxide, tar, acetone (found in nail polish remover), toluene (paint thinner), styrene (synthetic rubber), cadmium, formaldehyde, acrylonitrile (nasty

 stuff), and many more for cigarette smoke. Actually, car exhaust might be healthier for you. The average concentration of carbon monoxide in car exhaust is 7000 parts per million (ppm). In clean air it is about 0.02 ppm. In cigarette smoke it is 30,000ppm! I could go on and list more scary stuff, but lets look at the benefits of quitting smoking. There are so many reasons to quit smoking. One of them is to improve your health. Here are a few facts from Health Canada about how quickly your health can improve after you quit smoking. • Within 8 hours, the carbon monoxide level drops in your body and the oxygen level in your blood increases to normal • Within 48 hours, your chances of having a heart attack start to go down and your sense of smell and taste begin to improve •Within 72 hours, your lung capacity increases and breathing becomes easier •Within 2 weeks to 3 months, blood circulation improves and your lung functioning increases up to 30 percent •Within 6 months, coughing, sinus congestion, tiredness and shortness of breath improve •Within 1 year, your risk of suffering a smoking-related heart attack
 

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