WHO: Tobacco Could Kill 1 Billion People This Century

Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Article Date: 08 Feb 2008 - 16:00 PDT

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The World Health Organisation has warned that unless government's act now to reduce smoking, tobacco use could kill a billion people this century.

In a strongly worded report, the WHO said no country was doing all it could to curb tobacco use, which is set to kill 500 million of the world's current population and a further 500 million over in the course of the century.
It called on all countries to adopt six measures to reduce the number of people taking up smoking and help smokers quit, especially young people and women.

The WHO said the most effective strategy is to increase taxes to 75% or more of the pack price. Raising taxes could also provide funds to counter tobacco industry marketing tactics.

The WHO's six measures are: monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies, protecting people through smoking bans, offering help to quit, warning about the dangers of tobacco, enforcing bans on promotion, marketing and sponsorship, and raising taxes.

Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO said, "While efforts to combat tobacco are gaining momentum, virtually every country needs to do more as only 5% of people live in countries that fully implement any one of the six measures.

According to the report the big target for the tobacco industry is the developing world, where the use of cigarettes and other forms of tobacco is growing rapidly. As many as 100 million Chinese men currently under age 30 will die from tobacco use and in India a quarter of deaths among middle-aged men are caused by smoking."

http://www.ash.org.uk