Singapore (Reuters) – the habit of smoking costs the world
a 1 to 2 percent of its Gross domestic product each year
and it could kill nearly one billion people this century,
said the authors of the fourth edition of the tobacco Atlas
during the launch of the book in Singapore.
Economic losses include direct costs and
indirect, as medical expenses to treat diseases
related to smoking and the value of productivity
lost, said the authors of the book, which is published by the
American Cancer Society and the worldwide Foundation of the
Lung.
The cost of smoking could be even greater, as maintains it
one of the authors of the book, Hana Ross, saying that they are
difficult to measure intangible costs such as suffering from
the members of the family or the pain felt by patients.
“during the 20th century, smoking killed 100 million of
“
people. “It is estimated that in the 21st century you will kill 1 billion
people”, said the lead author of the book, Michael
Eriksen in the launch during a global Conference of
health in Singapore.
The world’s population has grown by more than four times in the
last century, passing 7,000 million people mark the
last year.
Eriksen said that there are about 1,000 million users of
tobacco worldwide and 360,000 non smokers die
each year because of exposure to second hand smoke, of the
which 75 per cent are women and children.
China is by far the largest consumer of cigarettes of the
world, with 38 percent of smokers in 2009
global. The country experienced a rise of more than four times, to
28,900 million dollars in costs due to the habit of the
cigarette between 2000 and 2008, the authors said in the
book.
“china has a big problem because the tobacco industry
“”
is part of the Government”, said co-author Judith Mackay,
by pointing out that the measure of Beijing to raise taxes to the
tobacco two years ago did not change the price of acquisition of the
cigarettes, but only manipulated the way in which the
taxes are paid to the Government.
