What will you look like 15 years from now if you continue to smoke?

My mother used to smoke. She grew up in rural Québec on a small farm. When she moved to Ottawa in 1960, she started to smoke because all the other women she hung out with smoked. Didn't help that her future husband was a heavy smoker also.

She once told me that if she had known then that smoking was a health risk, she wouldn't have started. Back then, smoking was seen as glamourous, grown-up, a very city thing to do. It wasn't until a series of minor strokes and heart problems that made her quit about 10 years ago.

Nearly 5 million Canadians smoke and up to half of them will become ill or die from continued tobacco use.

In 2008-09, the percentage of kids in grades 6-9 that had ever tried smoking cigarettes ranged from a low of 14% in Ontario to a high of 36% in Quebec. In grades 10-12, teens that had ever tried smoking cigarettes ranged from a low of 44% in Ontario to a high of 61% in Saskatchewan.

In an effort to encourage smokers to quit and young people not to start, the Canadian Lung Association has an online tool so people can face up to the harmful effects of smoking.

"You can't always see how smoking affects your entire body, but this online tool allows you to see how smoking could affect your looks," says Heather Borquez, CEO and president of the Canadian Lung Association. "We're offering people the opportunity to see how they would look in the future if they start smoking or continue to smoke."

If you can't appeal to a person's intelligence, then appeal to their vanity.

Until June 6th, people can go to the Canadian Lung Association or a provincial Lung Association Facebook page to get a promotional code to use the online tool, free of charge. Then they upload an image of themselves to age-me.com/lung and see a side-by-side, visual display of how their face will age naturally, or how they'll look if they smoke.

Tobacco is a leading preventable cause of death in Canada, responsible for over 37,000 deaths annually and about one third of cancers. For the 79% of smokers who have tried to quit, an average of six quit attempts were reported. The most recent estimates indicate that tobacco-related illness costs Canadians $4.4 billion in direct health care costs, and is responsible for 2.2 million acute care hospital days. The economic impact of tobacco use in Canada is also significant, with an estimated social cost of $17 billion per year. More than 90% of the estimated five million current Canadian smokers would like to quit, according to "Making Quit Happen: Canada's Challenges to Smoking Cessation".

TOP PHOTO: Have you ever wondered what smoking could do to your looks? Now you can find out.

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