The Deadly Toll of Inadequate Government Action on Tobacco Use

TOBACCO will kill nearly six million people this year, including 600,000 non-smokers, because governments are not doing enough to persuade people to quit or protect others from second-hand smoke, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Since there is often a lag of many years between when people start smoking and when it affects health, the epidemic of tobacco-related disease and death would have begun. And by 2030, the annual death toll could reach 8 million!

The WHO urged more governments to sign up and implement its tobacco control treaty, warning that if current trends persist, tobacco could cause up to a billion deaths in the 21st Century, a dramatic rise from the 100 million deaths it caused in the previous century.

So far, 172 countries and the European Union have signed up the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which came into force in 2005 and obliges them to take steps over time to cut smoking rates, limit exposure to second-hand smoke, and curb tobacco advertising and promotion.

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