Current Event: 02-25-08

Smoking could kill 1 billion by 2100

Tobacco use killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill one billion people in the 21st unless governments act now to dramatically reduce it. Governments around the world collect more than $200 billion in tobacco taxes every year. What they need to do though is increase their efforts to prevent young people from smoking, help smokers quit, and provide more protection to nonsmokers from exposure to second hand smoke. Tobacco use is also rising fastest in low-income countries as well. The tobacco epidemic already kills 5.4 million people a year from lung cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses, and that number will increase to more than 8 million a year by 2030. Unless urgent action is taken more than one billion people could be killed by tobacco during this century. Personally, this really upsets me how the tobacco industry's could be so heartless. My mother is addicted to tobacco, and she has tried stopping repeatedly yet with no positive results. Even though the tobacco industry's bring in a lot of income to the governments, I think our families are more important and their lives are at stake.

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