There Has Always Been A Safe Alternative To Cigarettes Smoking cigarettes have been known to cause many cancers, including mouth and lung, cardiovascular disorders and diseases, and pulmonary diseases. The 2014 Surgeon General’s Report, The Health Consequences of Smoking – 50 years of Progress, found that recent changes in the composition of cigarettes have further increased the risk of lung cancer. This report also adds age-related macular degeneration, congenital birth defects, liver cancer, colorectal cancer, diabetes, ectopic pregnancy, erectile dysfunction, and rheumatoid arthritis to the list of diseases caused my cigarette smoking (Moser, 3). One in five Kansans smoke cigarettes, not including those who smoke “casually” and do not identify themselves as smokers. Kansas alone loses over four thousand adults, and spends nine hundred twenty seven million dollars on health care annually to causes directly related to smoking (Moser, 3). Fifty seven percent of current smokers in Kansas reported that they had tried to quit smoking at least one time in the past year. Kansans needs a new way to help these smokers quit for good, because current strategies have only helped eleven percent of current smokers quit. To help smokers in the state of Kansas quit, smokeless tobacco should be recognized as a much safer alternative to cigarettes. The government of the United States of America has caused many people to immediately deny the thought that smokeless tobacco is in fact safer than cigarettes. This is mostly because of the federally mandated labels on all forms of smokeless tobacco that clearly states “WARNING: THIS PRODUCT IS NOT A SAFE ALTERNATIVE TO CIGARETTES” (Stier,1). This mindset throws out new innovative ideas to get people off cigarettes. The conventional way to quit smoking is by using nicotine replacement medications in the form of gum and patches. People who believe that nicotine replacement medicines ar