Why tobacco control is important
Tobacco use is the number 1 cause of preventable disease and death in Canada and causes 37,000 Canadian deaths each year.
Smoking causes about 30% of cancer deaths in Canada and about 85% of lung cancer deaths.
More Canadians die from lung cancer than any other cancer
In 2012, 25,600 Canadians were diagnosed with lung cancer and 20,100 died of the disease.
The number of lung cancer deaths exceeds the total number of deaths from colorectal cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.
Smoking causes many types of cancer
In addition to lung cancer, smoking can cause many other cancers including:
- laryngeal
- oral
- stomach
- pancreatic
- kidney
- bladder
- ovarian
- cervical
- colorectal
- pharyngeal
- esophageal
- nasal cavity
- bone marrow
- hepatoblastoma – a childhood cancer
Smoking starts early
The overwhelming majority of smokers begin to smoke as teens or pre-teens.
In 2011, smoking among youth aged 15–19 years was 12% or about 256,000 teens.
Among Canadians over the age of 15, smoking in 2011 was 17% or about 4.9 million Canadians.
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