The percentage of people who smoke has fallen in most countries since 1990, but the total numbers of smokers and smoking deaths have risen, a study says. Half the tobacco-related mortalities occur in just four countries.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/O. Siagian
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There were more than 6.4 million deaths attributable to tobacco worldwide in 2015, with half of them in only four countries - China, India, the United States and Russia - according to a new study published on Thursday in the medical journal "The Lancet."
The study, entitled "Global Burden of Diseases" noted that the percentage of smokers globally had dropped in the past 25 years, with one in four men and one in 20 women lighting up daily in 2015, as compared with one in three men and one in 12 women in 1990.
Going graphic: shock photos on German cigarette packs
Germany's most recent legislation is in line with the motto for World No Tobacco Day 2016: Get ready for plain packaging. Photos of tumors and rotten teeth now grace German cigarette packs as well.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
The slogan's not enough
Until recently, cigarette packs in Germany only came with slogans like "Smoking kills." But now tobacco companies have to cover two thirds of the packaging with deterrent images. With the new law, Germany is implementing a 2014 EU regulation. "Our goal is to prevent young people from starting to smoke," Social Democrat drug policy spokesman Burkhard Blienert said.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Warmuth
Possible new design
German smokers could now face images like this one. Two thirds of a pack will have to be covered by a picture - and rotting teeth are a visceral deterrent. Cigarettes and tobacco with picture-less packaging produced until May 2016 are allowed on store shelves for one year. After that, there will be no escaping the gruesome images.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Fighting the smoke
The German government also passed a bill that will ban cigarette ads on public billboards, posters and in movie theaters that show films for anyone younger than 18 years of age. Politicians hope that this measure will help keep young people from ever reaching for a cigarette in the first place. The German motto for World No Tobacco Day 2016 is "No room for toxic messages."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/W. Steinberg
Australia, the pioneer
Lawmakers down under went even further in their regulation of cigarette packaging. Since 2012, all cigarette packs in Australia come with large graphic warnings against smoking - and without any logos. France is set to introduce similar rules at the end of 2016.
Image: Getty Images/R. Pierse
Going neutral is contentious
The neutral packaging allows brand names only in a small, non-distinct font at the bottom of the pack. The color of the pack is the same for all brands and images cover more than the German mandatory two thirds of a pack. French tobacco companies are not amused by this prospect: the producer of Gauloises, Imperial Tobacco daughter Seita, announced they will sue.
Image: Imago/Kyodo
Smoking will "die down eventually"
Opponents of the graphic images on cigarette packs say they won't keep smokers from lighting up. But proponents hope to deter people who haven't smoked before from picking up a pack. "If [smoking]'s not associated with nice things via pretty packaging or advertising anymore, it's going to die down eventually," psychologist Christoph Kröger predicts.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
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However, the number of deaths caused by tobacco use went up by 4.7 percent in the same period, a rise due to the increasing world population. The number of daily smokers also rose to more than 930 million people, compared with 870 million in 1990 - a jump of 7 percent.
The study showed a wide disparity between countries in the respective percentages of smokers. Brazil scored one of the biggest successes in reducing the number of its tobacco users over the 25-year-period, with the percentage dropping from 29 to 12 percent among men, and from 19 to 8 percent among women.
But in countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines, where 47, 38 and 35 percent of men respectively smoke on a daily basis, the figure remained constant from 1990 to 2015.
Russia was a latecomer to anti-smoking campaignsImage: DW/E. Samedowa
In Russia, where anti-smoking policies were not introduced until 2014, there was even a rise of more than 4 percent in smoking among women.
The World Health Organization has warned that in sub-Saharan Africa, which is being aggressively targeted by major tobacco companies, the number of men and women smoking could go up 50 percent by 2025, compared with 2010.
"The modern tobacco industry profits from enslaving children and young people in poor countries into a lifelong addiction, ultimately taking their lives for profit," John Britton from the University of Notthingham's UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies told AFP news agency.
Many young Africans are taking up the habitImage: picture-alliance/blickwinkel/Blinkcatcher
Britton also noted that global measures aimed at curbing smoking - such as higher taxes, education campaigns and package warnings - mostly focused on tobacco consumers and not producers of tobacco products.
Health experts estimate that half of daily smokers will die a premature death caused by their habit unless they quit.
"Smoking remains the second largest risk factor for early death and disability" after high blood pressure, said one of the study's senior authors, Emmanuela Gakidou from the University of Washington in Seattle, USA.
