The World Health Organization has some dreadful facts about tobacco. Smoking has its presence at a tremendously large scale throughout the world. Globally, use of tobacco products is increasing, although it is decreasing in high-income countries.
- There are more than one billion smokers in the world
- Almost half of the world's children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke
- More than 80% of the world's smokers live in low- and middle-income countries
- Tobacco use kills 5.4 million people a year - an average of one person every six seconds -and accounts for one in 10 adult deaths worldwide
- Tobacco kills up to half of all users
- An estimated 126 million Americans are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke and almost 50 thousand nonsmokers die from diseases caused by secondhand smoke exposure
- 100 million deaths were caused by tobacco in the 20th century. If current trends continue, there may be up to one billion deaths in the 21st century
- Unchecked, tobacco-related deaths may increase to more than eight million a year by 2030 and 80% of those deaths may occur in the developing world
