obacco use among children and teens has reached epidemic proportions. Every day, more than 2,000 kids in America become regular smokers; one-third of them will die prematurely from lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and other tobacco-caused diseases. And that does not include the kids who become addicted to spit (smokeless) tobacco. Currently, an estimated 4.5 million kids between the ages of 12 and 17 are smokers, collectively smoking more than 500 million packs of cigarettes a year. In the past decade, the number of kids under 18 who became daily smokers each year has increased by more than 70 percent. The long-term consequences are clear: well over 400,000 Americans die annually from smoking, and thousands more from smokeless tobacco and secondhand smoke. Almost 90 percent of adult smokers began at or before age 18.

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