“China is the jewel in the crown. You could say the single biggest marketing opportunity in the world is to sell cigarettes to Chinese women.”
—Jef Colin, lecturer in international public policy at Edinburgh University, 2006
Global cigarette consumption has been rising steadily since James Bonsack invented the first cigarette-rolling machine in 1881. By the 1960s, the incontrovertible health consequences of smoking had become apparent. In some countries, consumption began leveling off and even decreasing. Worldwide, however, more people are smoking. Cigarettes account for the largest share of manufactured tobacco products (96 percent of total value sales), although in South Asia, bidi consumption exceeds cigarette consumption by an order of magnitude and use of oral tobacco remains a widespread problem.
The total number of smokers is increasing mainly due to expansion of the world’s population: by 2030, the planet will support 2 billion more people than in 2000. Unless smoking prevalence rates decline dramatically, the absolute number of smokers will continue to increase. A continuing decline in male smoking prevalence may be offset, in part, by perilous increases in female smoking rates, especially in developing countries.
Unless dramatic steps are taken to control tobacco, about 6.3 trillion cigarettes will be produced in 2010—more than 900 cigarettes for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Escalating global consumption of tobacco products has created an unprecedented global public health emergency, a pandemic of epic proportions.
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—Jef Colin, lecturer in international public policy at Edinburgh University, 2006
The total number of smokers is increasing mainly due to expansion of the world’s population: by 2030, the planet will support 2 billion more people than in 2000. Unless smoking prevalence rates decline dramatically, the absolute number of smokers will continue to increase. A continuing decline in male smoking prevalence may be offset, in part, by perilous increases in female smoking rates, especially in developing countries.
Unless dramatic steps are taken to control tobacco, about 6.3 trillion cigarettes will be produced in 2010—more than 900 cigarettes for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Escalating global consumption of tobacco products has created an unprecedented global public health emergency, a pandemic of epic proportions.
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