Smoking could kill a billion this century

TOBACCO use killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill a billion people in the next 100 years unless governments act to dramatically reduce it, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned yesterday.

Governments around the world collect more than $200 billion (€138bn) in tobacco taxes every year but spend less than one fifth of 1% of that revenue on tobacco control, it said.

“We hold in our hands the solution to the global tobacco epidemic that threatens the lives of one billion men, women and children during this century,” WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan said in an introduction to its new report.

The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008 calls on all countries to dramatically increase efforts to prevent young people from beginning to smoke, help smokers quit and protect non-smokers from exposure to second-hand smoke.

It urges governments to adopt six “tobacco control policies” — raise taxes and prices of tobacco; ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; protect people from second-hand smoke; warn people about the dangers of tobacco; help those who want to quit smoking; and monitor tobacco use to understand and reverse the epidemic.

“The tobacco epidemic already kills 5.4m people a year from lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses,” said Dr Chan.

“Unchecked, that number will increase to more than 8m a year by 2030.”

Dr Chan was launching the report with New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, helped fund it.

According to the report, nearly two thirds of the world’s smokers live in 10 countries — China, which accounts for nearly 30%, India for about 10%, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany and Turkey.

It forecast that more than 80% of tobacco-related deaths will be in low- and middle-income countries by 2030. Tobacco use is growing fastest in low-income countries, the report said, “due to steady population growth coupled with tobacco industry targeting, ensuring that millions of people become fatally addicted each year”.

It warned that the shift of the tobacco epidemic to the developing world will lead to unprecedented levels of disease and early death in countries where population growth and the potential for increased tobacco use are highest and where healthcare services are least available.

“In the 20th century, the tobacco epidemic killed 100m people worldwide,” the report said. “Unless urgent action is taken, more than 1bn people could be killed by tobacco during this century.” WHO called the rise in tobacco use by younger women one of the most ominous potential developments of the epidemic’s growth.

One of the most effective ways to curb tobacco use is to ban all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, but it said only 20 of 179 countries that responded have complete bans.