Earlier this year, Eastern was made a smoke-free campus.

While this is a blessing, it is also a curse because the sidewalks are public to the city, and you will find smokers smoking on the curbs of Fourth Street, where many students walk their daily commute to and from class.

With the numbers of tobacco-use plummeting, there is still knowledge to be known about the effects smoking has on your body.

Smoking still remains the No. 1 cause of preventable death in America, killing 480,000 citizens per year, and 41,000 deaths are caused by second-hand smoke.

While there are a lot more reasons besides these on why you shouldn’t smoke, I researched the top reasons I believe are the absolute worst.

Nobody enjoys the smell of burning tar. If you smoke, everything from your hair, clothes, house and car will smell like your bad habit.

It’s unenjoyable for everyone, and I can’t stand being in an environment where my eyes are watering, and I’m choking on the very air I breathe.

Knowing that secondhand smoke is affecting my lungs just as much as the person next to me smoking definitely aids in my disgust for the smell.

Smokers also experience a dulling of their senses with taste and smell being affected more than others.

Smokers can’t fully experience the intense taste of delicious food that they once had before they started smoking, but this is mostly due to the effect smoking has on one’s nasal senses.

Breathing in the toxic fumes is detrimental to the senses.

Leathery skin and deep wrinkles can often help you tell a smoker apart from a non-smoker because smoking is a significant cause for premature aging.

Smoking deprives skin of oxygen, causing constriction of blood vessels. Resulting from this, blood takes longer to reach the organs, and, you guessed it, your skin as well.

One can also notice a smoker by the tar stains on their hands, and nothing you can do can wash it off, just as one can never wash the smell off of them.

People who smoke are also more susceptible to infections.

According to Webmd.com, viral and bacterial diseases such as common flus and colds are found more often in smokers.

Tiny hairs called cilia line our brachial tubes in an effort to prevent and catch diseases.

The cilia push out the diseases, up our brachial or tracheal tubes and we cough them out, or swallow them and destroy them with our stomach acids.

Cigarette smoke paralyzes the cilia, therefore destroying one of our body’s main protective mechanism.

Within a month of quitting smoking, cilia are restored and back to normal, functioning properly.

The cost of smoking is oftentimes a reason that most smokers quit.

The price of tobacco averages to $5 a pack, and in some states, the average even goes as far up as $10 a pack.

That is so much money to waste on a product that is slowly killing you! Those who smoke a pack a day are spending close to $3,000 to $5,000 a year. There’s no better time to start the process of quitting smoking than now.

Your senses, body, and entire health overall, and not to mention the money in your pocket, will benefit from it in the long run.