The proportion of smokers in the world is falling. It is a huge step forward, says the World Health Organization WHO, which has investigated the smoking habits of the world’s population. In just 22 years, the proportion of people over the age of 15 who use tobacco has fallen by more than a third (although we are writing here about smokers, the figures cover all use of tobacco, i.e. not only cigarettes, cigars and cigars, but also snuff and chewing tobacco, hookahs, Indian bidis, Indonesian kreteks and other local smoking alternatives – but not e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches and other non-tobacco nicotine products). A smoking epidemic So progress is being made towards the tobacco epidemic, as the WHO calls it. It is probably no surprise to most people that cigarettes are harmful to health, but for the record: Smoking increases the risk of three or four handfuls of cancer types (and accounts for a quarter of all cancer cases) and also, among other things, heart disease, blood clots, diabetes, COPD, pneumonia, asthma, blindness, cataracts, arthritis and reduced fertility. In total, tobacco costs seven million lives annually, and a further 1.3 million deaths among non-smokers from passive smoking. There are approximately three times as many deaths as from the major diseases tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS – combined. Greater speed WHO’s major survey covers 165 countries, which together are home to 97 percent of the world’s population. In 29 countries, there is insufficient data to assess whether there will be far more or fewer cigarettes over the counter, but in most countries the trend is clear: Fewer and fewer people are smoking. Only in Congo, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Oman and Moldova is the proportion of smokers increasing, while the use of tobacco is declining in 150 countries. This is mainly because more and more countries are using anti-smoking tools. “In 2008, only five percent of the world’s population was covered by solid anti-smoking legislation, but today it applies to a quarter of people in the world. Those countries that have not yet done so should ban smoking in all public, indoor places, workplaces and public transport,” wrote Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Secretary-General of the WHO last year in an analysis of the world’s anti-smoking efforts. And there is a sharp increase in the number of countries using one or more methods to become smoke-free, from bans on smoking in, for example, pubs, higher taxes, subsidies to stop smoking, bans on tobacco advertising and so on. Nevertheless, efforts against smoking are moving too slowly. The WHO has a target that the proportion of smokers should fall by 30 per cent between 2010 and 2025, but they expect that it will only fall by 25 per cent. “The past two decades have given us valuable knowledge to do something about this health threat – we must do something now to save lives and stop the spread of the deadly habit”, writes Ghebreyesus.
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Stumping cigarettes around the world – The world’s best news
