Smoking a Silent Killer

According to Oxford, an intoxicant is defined as a poison, and a poison is defined as "a substance that causes death or harm when introduced into or absorbed by a living organism". Smoking I believe, causes death or harm to the smoker, even to non-smokers who end up as collateral damage. Hence, I believe that when Allah says in the Quran that "intoxicants" are an abomination, and we must eschew (refrain) from such abominations, I believe smoking falls into that category of intoxicants, don't you?

It's really interesting and weird if you ask me. The ill effects of smoking are extremely well documented. Almost everyone in today's world, educated or not, smoker or not, knows that smoking is bad for your health. Yet, billions of people still smoke around the world. And what's even more interesting, is that we have doctors, health officers and others in the medical field who smoke when they themselves study first hand about the negative effects of smoking. It's like, someone is doing research on arsenic, a highly poisonous substance, and just decides to drink a bit just for kicks.

Smoking in the US, causes more than 400 000 deaths each year, and second-hand smoke kills approximately another 3 000 people. The CDC in 2004, identified 69 substances in cigarette smoke as carcinogens (substances that cause cancer). Smoking increases the risk of lung cancer and heart diseases, which let me tell you, leads to a slow and painful death. Just Google "effects of smoking" and you can find all kinds of websites with plenty of facts about the dark side of smoking (is there a good side?).

When you smoke, you are slowly committing suicide. And with every puff of second-hand smoke, your committing homicide to those around you. So if I say that smokers are actually serial killers, would that be too extreme?

No good comes from smoking. It causes your health to deteriorate, it burns a huge whole in your wallet, and if you smoke at home around your family or around friends, you...