Smoking puts enormous pressure on the NHS. It kills about 80,000 people a year, external, and is responsible for one in four of all deaths from cancer.
It is also linked to other serious conditions, including heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, asthma and dementia. It can affect fertility and pregnancy.
Figures from NHS England show there were an estimated 408,000 hospital admissions due to smoking in 2022-2023, external, up from 389,000 in 2021-2022.
Cigarettes release thousands of different chemicals when they burn, including carbon monoxide, lead and ammonia.
Many components of tobacco are poisonous, and up to 70 cause cancer.
Vaping is not as harmful as smoking cigarettes, and the NHS says it has helped thousands of people to quit, external.
However, health experts warn that anyone who does not currently smoke should not start vaping, because it can cause long-term damage to young people’s lungs, hearts and brains.
In December 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that “alarming evidence” about the dangers of vaping was growing, external.