cold turkey.

I am amazed at this day and age how many people are still smoking. Even after all the evidence of how bad smoking is for our health and the people around us who are inadvertently affected by it. I see more and more teenagers smoking and parents who smoke in front of their kids. Statistics state by next year 6 million people will die from smoke related diseases such as cancer, heart disease, emphysema and several others.

So what will it take to get people to stop smoking?

Here are some hard core findings from tobaccoatlas.com that I hope you may consider before you decide to take your next puff.

* 1 billion men smoke -- 35 percent of men in rich countries and 50 percent of men in developing countries.

* About 250 million women smoke daily -- 22 percent of women in developed countries and 9 percent of women in developing countries.

* Smoking rates among women are either stable or increasing in several southern, central and eastern European countries.

* The risk of dying from lung cancer is more than 23 times higher for men who smoke than for nonsmokers and 13 times higher for women smokers.

* Tobacco kills one-third to one-half of those who smoke. Smokers die an average of 15 years earlier than nonsmokers.

* Tobacco use will eventually kill 250 million of today's teenagers and children.

* Nearly one-quarter of young people who smoke tried their first cigarette before the age of 10.

* Occupational exposure to secondhand smoke kills 200,000 workers every year.

"One hundred million people were killed by tobacco in the 20th century. Unless effective measures are implemented to prevent young people from smoking and to help current smokers quit, report predictions state tobacco will kill 1 billion people in the 21st century."

We only have one life, make it last!

image found - quit-smoking-4-ever.com