If somebody tried to introduce tobacco as a consumer product into the world today — knowing 
what we know now about this global killer — no country in the world would allow it. And yet, because a billion people already are addicted to it, and because a multi-billion-dollar industry thrives on those addicted to tobacco, we are forced to suffer this killer among us. Even though it kills 5.4 million people a year. That figure will rise to 8 million by 2030, with 80 percent in the developing world, where the tobacco industry has targeted its marketing machine. Young women in poor, high-population countries are a major target.
Can’t we at least stop the tobacco industry from marketing to our children? We can, and the way to do it is a total worldwide ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. All of it. No billboards, no magazine ads, no movie stars paid to puff a certain brand, no faux prevention efforts by tobacco companies that are really just thinly encoded marketing…
This year’s WHO World No Tobacco Day is dedicated to breaking the tobacco net. Check out the website, report and the animated and music videos.
Also check out the WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008. (Full disclosure: I was the lead writer on it).
