Social smokers might think twice about lighting up, advised anti-tobacco researchers, because smoking is even more dangerous than previously believed.

A new research showed that people who smoked three cigarettes or less a day had a 65 percent higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease than nonsmokers.

Researchers determined that low doses of cigarette smoke as well as secondhand smoke bring a much higher risk of cardiovascular disease and death than experts had expected.

"Smoking is even more harmful than we previously thought," said Deborah Zysman, executive director of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii.

Researchers involved data from more than 1 million adults. And at the end of the investigation, they found the following:

• Half a pack of cigarettes or eight to 12 cigarettes per day carried a 79 percent increase in risk of death from heart disease.
• A full pack, or 12 to 22 cigarettes a day, carried a 100 percent increase in the risk of fatal cardiovascular disease.
• Breathing moderate to high levels of ambient air pollution and secondhand smoke, with the equivalent of smoking less than one cigarette a day, still increased the risk of death from heart disease by about 20 percent to 30 percent compared with those who are not exposed to such pollutants.

The study comes months after the Legislature significantly cut funding for tobacco prevention. Funding fall from 25 percent to 6.5 percent of the estimated $56 million Hawaii bears a year from the tobacco settlement fund.

Zysman said the drops will possible need a reduction or elimination of tobacco prevention and cessation services from about 30 community groups. By now, merchants are spending $42.2 million in Hawaii alone to encourage tobacco. It is consider that 1,100 people in Hawaii will die this year from disease related to smoking.

In recent years, Hawaii was appreciated as having one of the lowest smoking rates in the nation with a drop in adult smoking to 15.4 percent last year from 17 percent in 2007. The youth smoking rate also dropped, to 14.8 percent in 2007 from 24.5 percent in 2000.

In spite of a lot of anti-tobacco programs which have only one aim to decrease the tobacco use, smoking continues to kill many and many people.