Today is World No Tobacco Day - this year's aim is to focus on persuading more countries to sign up to a global treaty by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to ensure better public health protection from smoking.
Here are a few facts about smoking:
- In Indonesia alone there are 21 million child smokers;
- Smoking kills more than alcohol, AIDS, illegal drugs, murders/suicides & car accidents combined;
- based on current trends tobacco will kill 1 billion people in the 21st century;
- global cigarette sales 5,000 billion in 1990, 5900 billion in 2009;
- 100,000 people in the UK die from smoking each year;
- The top five countries with the world's largest cigarette consumption in 2009:
- China
- Russia
- US
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Tobacco is the second most likely cause of death globally. It kills one in ten adults worldwide;
- Tobacco kills up to half of its users;
- an average of one person dies every six seconds from smoking.