Evidence of the Harmfulness of Smoking

Grows and grows.

But yet, Annual tobacco deaths in poor countries to reach 7 million by 2030.
"Awareness of the health hazards of tobacco is also low. In 1996 two thirds of adult Chinese smokers believed that cigarettes did little or no harm. Low levels of education in many developing countries also make it harder for people to understand the hazards."

Unfortunately it doesn't seem uncommon for Muslims to be amongst this group. Why is the ignorance so commonplace? One of the original studies which showed the cause of the sharp increase in lung cancer rates that begun in the last century, was referred to, in relation to the fiqh ruling on smoking, in the Reliance of the Traveller. [w41.2; Evidence of the Harmfulness of Smoking. Reliance of the Traveller, Ahmad ibn Naqib al Misri, trans.Nuh Ha Mim Keller].

A more accurate picture has now emerged due to the original study having continued to 2001...

The Mortality in relation to smoking: 50 years' observations on 34 439 male British doctors study just published, leaves even less room for ignorance or dispute regarding the hazards of smoking:

"Among the particular generation of men born around 1920, cigarette smoking tripled the age specific mortality rates

Among British men born 1900-1909, cigarette smoking approximately doubled the age specific mortality rates in both middle and old age

Longevity has been improving rapidly for non-smokers, but not for men who continued smoking cigarettes

Cessation at age 50 halved the hazard; cessation at 30 avoided almost all of it

On average, cigarette smokers die about 10 years younger than non-smokers

Stopping at age 60, 50, 40, or 30 gains, respectively, about 3, 6, 9, or 10 years of life expectancy"

So let the 60 year old smoker in the family know that even they could gain at least three years of life expectancy by quitting.

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