The Tobaco Atlas. © WLF 
The third edition of the document outlining the devastating impact of tobacco on global health and economies also provides vivid evidence that the health burden on account of tobacco use is shifting from high-income countries to their low and middle-income counterparts, says Peter Baldini, chief executive officer of World Lung Foundation (WLF). WLF along with the American Cancer Society has compiled the report.
The report estimates that in 2010, tobacco will kill six million people worldwide annually, 72 percent of whom will be in low and middle-income countries. In Bangladesh alone, if the average household bought food with the money normally spent on tobacco, more than 10 million people would no longer suffer from malnutrition and 350 children under age five could be saved each day.
Six million children in India are employed as full time beedi industry workers exposing them to the scourge early on in life, it says.
Apart from the regular cost-benefit analysis, productivity-linked estimates and how better the money used for tobacco could have been utilized in healthier pursuits, the report names cigarettes as the world's most widely smuggled legal consumer product. In 2006, about 600 billion smuggled cigarettes made it to the market, representing an enormous missed tax opportunity for governments, as well as a missed opportunity to prevent many people from starting to smoke and encourage others to quit, it says.
"The Tobacco Atlas is crucial to understanding the nature of the most preventable global health epidemic," says John R. Seffrin, chief executive officer of American Cancer Society.
