According to data, only 5% of the world’s population or some 154 million people benefit from anti-smoking laws. Additionally, statistics show that passive smoking is responsible for about 600,000 deaths a year. The anti-tobacco lobby is a lost battle especially in developing countries and emerging economies where smoke-free laws are not strictly implemented, if ever they do exist at all.

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Margaret Chan denounced the “ruthless, devious” attitude of the tobacco industry in trying to gain market share in developing countries. According to Chan, the consumption of tobacco is currently progressing in the developing world. While large groups of the tobacco industry are in retreat in some parts of the world, they are very much on the march in other regions, she added. This lament marked her speech at the fifth anniversary of the WHO convention to combat smoking.

‘The 2005 convention bans advertising and sponsorship, advocates tobacco taxes, legislation to make public places smoke-free and other restrictions to stifle a growth in smoking which is blamed for increasing heart disease, strokes and cancers.’

The developing world is the ‘new frontier’ in expanding the tobacco global markets, with girls and women representing a very attractive potential market. This is also where poor sectors of the population are more vulnerable to the ill effects of smoking due to poverty and poor health care.

‘The global death toll attributed to tobacco could rise to eight million by 2030 at the current rate.’
Photo Courtesy of Alina Zienowicz

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Via Yahoo! News