World Health Organization experts have said that one billion people will die of tobacco related illnesses this century unless governments in both rich and poor countries take urgent action to prevent smoking.

 

At the start of an international conference in Bangkok, Douglas Bettcher, head of the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, said “Tobacco is a defective product. It kills half of its customers.”

 

“It kills 5.4 million people per year and half of those deaths are in developing countries. That’s like one jumbo jet going down every hour and with smoking rates in many developing countries on the rise, particularly among teenagers, that annual death toll would rise to 8.3 million within the next 20 years,” he said. 

 

“It’s a completely preventable epidemic. If governments introduce measures such as aggressive taxation, banning cigarette advertising and making offices and public places totally smokefree, smoking rates could halve by 2050, saving two hundred million lives. ”

 

Source: Daily Times [Pakistan] 03 July 2007

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