The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Eco-Economy Update 2004-3
For Immediate Release
Copyright Earth Policy Institute 2004
February 18, 2004


U.S. LEADING WORLD AWAY FROM CIGARETTES
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update34.htm

Lester R. Brown

The United States--the country that gave the world tobacco--is now leading
it away from cigarettes. After climbing for nearly a century, the number
of cigarettes smoked per person in this country peaked at nearly 2,900 in
1976 and began to decline. By 2003 the figure had dropped to 1,545
cigarettes--a fall of 46 percent. If this trend continues for another
quarter-century, smokers will be a rarity in the United States.

As the costs of cigarette smoking become clear, pressure to phase out
cigarettes is gaining momentum. At its annual meeting in 2003, the
American Society of Clinical Oncology called for the elimination of
tobacco from the world. Its president, Dr. Paul A. Bunn, Jr., noted: "We
are cancer doctors. We get frustrated seeing the devastation caused by
tobacco products."

At a broader level, the World Medical Association (WMA), which includes
organizations representing 10 million doctors from 117 countries, has
called for strong measures to reduce cigarette smoking. The 4.9 million
annual deaths from inhaling cigarette smoke exceed the 3 million deaths
from all other air pollutants combined. Among the WMA's principal
recommendations are raising taxes on and banning all advertising for
cigarettes.

Meanwhile the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a "Tobacco Free
Initiative." Its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was unanimously
approved in May 2003 by the 192 countries attending the World Health
Assembly. Calling for bans on cigarette advertising, higher taxes on
cigarettes, and restrictions on smoking in the workplace, this treaty will
take effect once 40 members have ratified it.

World usage of this addictive product peaked in 1987 at 1,038 cigarettes
smoked per person. Though the decline lagged trends in the United States
by roughly a decade, the global figure fell to 887 cigarettes per person
in 2002, a drop of nearly 15 percent. Countries that were once bastions of
smoking, such as France, Japan, and China, are following the U.S. lead.

In France--where the government is now taking strong steps to discourage
smoking--the number of cigarettes smoked per person dropped from 1,750 in
1985 to 1,338 in 2003, a decline of more than 23 percent. In Japan, where
most men once smoked, the peak came in 1992. Since then annual consumption
has dropped some 18 percent, from 2,744 cigarettes per person to 2,247
cigarettes in 2003. And in China, the world's most populous country,
smoking peaked in 1990 at 1,440 cigarettes per person and then fell 8
percent to 1,330 cigarettes in 2003.

Evidence of the damaging effects of cigarette smoking on human health
continues to accumulate. Today there are some 25 known tobacco-related
diseases, including heart disease, strokes, respiratory illnesses, and
several forms of cancer. Recent research findings show that smoking
increases breast cancer in women by 30 percent and contributes to
impotence in men. The constriction and blockage of small blood vessels
that can prevent an erection in men who smoke is a forerunner of the
blockage of the larger coronary arteries that leads to heart disease.

The number of deaths per year worldwide from smoking-related
illnesses--currently at 4.9 million--is expected to reach 10 million by
2020. WHO estimates that nearly one third of all adult smokers will die of
smoking-related illnesses. In China, where smoking is largely limited to
males, easily 100 million men could eventually die from smoking-related
illnesses if smoking rates are not further reduced.

In addition to the human suffering from lung cancer, heart disease, and
other smoking-caused illnesses, the economic cost of cigarette use is
high. A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
indicates that each pack of cigarettes smoked in the United States costs
society $7.18 in health care and lost employee productivity. It is the
economics of smoking that helped convince the World Bank to ally itself
with WHO in an effort to stamp out tobacco production and use.

Among the steps being taken to discourage smoking are educational
campaigns on how smoking affects health, bans on advertising, restrictions
on indoor smoking, higher taxes, and legal actions by smoking victims
against tobacco companies. Information campaigns can be particularly
effective in rural areas of developing countries, where information on
smoking and health is almost nonexistent.

In the United States, California--a leader in the anti-smoking
campaign--has exploited concerns about impotence in a television
commercial in which a man's flirtation with a woman fails when the
cigarette in his mouth begins to droop. While teenagers may not be
particularly concerned about their mortality, they do worry about their
sexuality. In Thailand, cigarette packs carry a warning in large type:
"Cigarette smoking causes sexual impotence."

Raising taxes on cigarettes has become commonplace at the state level in
the United States. This both discourages smoking and helps close spiraling
fiscal deficits. In 2002, some 19 of the 50 states raised cigarette taxes
by an average of 42¢ per pack. In 2003, another 13 states raised taxes. On
top of the federal tax of 39¢ per pack, New Jersey has an added tax of
$2.05. New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts each have taxes of $1.50 a
pack.

Some countries have discouraged smoking with stiff taxes on cigarettes.
Among the leaders in this effort are Norway with a tax of $5.99 per pack,
the United Kingdom at $5.03, Ireland at $3.52, and Denmark at $3.08.

Legal action holding cigarette manufacturers responsible for the products
they market is beginning to gain traction in many countries. This approach
is perhaps most advanced in the United States. In late November 1998, the
U.S. cigarette industry agreed to pay the 50 state governments a
staggering total of $251 billion to cover past Medicare costs of treating
smoking-related illnesses--nearly $1,000 for every American.

Early attempts to protect nonsmokers from the adverse effects of cigarette
smoke included segregating smokers on planes and in restaurants. More
recently this has been replaced by outright bans. Local bans on indoor
smoking in workplaces and public buildings, planes, trains, buses,
restaurants, and bars are now commonplace. Several states--including New
York, Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, and California--have banned smoking in
restaurants and bars. The Norwegian Parliament, in April 2003, became the
first country to approve a national ban on smoking in restaurants and
bars. Ireland and the Netherlands are following suit.

Bhutan, a small mountainous kingdom between India and China, may be the
first country to completely ban cigarettes. Already 19 of its 20 district
health officials are working to make the sale of tobacco products illegal
and to fine anyone caught smoking in public.

Measures that discourage smoking will quickly reduce smoking-related
illnesses and raise life expectancy. Only a few years ago the idea that
citizen action groups, national governments, medical associations, WHO,
and the World Bank would be working together to create a tobacco-free
world would have seemed farfetched. Today, it is becoming a reality.

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