Some Global Smoking Statistics
How many new smokers begin to pollute their bodies each day? It is estimated that roughly eighty to one hundred thousand young people will light up their first cigarette each day of the year. That is just underage children, and doesn’t account for the adult population of the world.
The World Health Organization has calculated that fifteen billion cigarettes are sold around the world in a single day, which translates to a whopping ten million cigarettes each and every minute! This is astounding when you also understand that smoking is the primary cause for than four million worldwide deaths each year too. This means that it kills roughly one in every six people.
A standard cigarette is an environmental and human destruction machine that has over four thousand chemicals contained in its tiny wrapping. The process of producing cigarettes is one of the most destructive in the world because it relies on billions of gallons of water, uses excessive amounts of fertilizers, wastes millions of trees, and results in air, water, and land pollution as well as human disease.
The cost of treating the health conditions linked to smoking runs at roughly one hundred and fifty billion dollars per year in the United States alone. When the figures are taken on a global scale it is estimated that it requires around five hundred billion dollars in direct medical expenses.
Is there any good news? Realistically, the only good news is actually horrific – where global smoking statistics are concerned the population remains under control simply because smoking negates the advances in medicine that have extended the average human life span. The average smoker will see fifteen years less life than the average non-smoker. Additionally, most governments see financial savings on welfare, health care and housing simply because of the huge number of deaths that are caused by smoking.
Interestingly enough even as governments all around the world have begun to impose ever increasing taxes on the price of tobacco products, and as manufacturers also increase their per-pack prices, the number of smokers has climbed. This is due to the fact that the big tobacco companies are gearing their advertising towards the most targetable market – the younger generation. Tobacco companies have recognized that teenagers are the most easily influenced through their advertising campaigns and this accounts for the statistics connected to the appearance of cigarettes in many movies and television programs favored by these groups.
