Tobacco May Kill 1 Billion This Century

[Gold9472]

Tobacco May Kill 1 Billion This Century
Tobacco Expected to Kill 1 Billion This Century, if Current Trends Hold

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=2173957&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

(Gold9472: BRB... I need a smoke.)

By ANDREW BRIDGES

WASHINGTON^Jul 10, 2006^(AP)—^If current trends hold, tobacco will kill a billion people this century, 10 times the toll it took in the 20th century, public health officials said Monday.

Tobacco accounts for one in five cancer deaths, or 1.4 million deaths worldwide each year, according to two new reference guides that chart global tobacco use and cancer. Lung cancer remains the major cancer among the 10.9 million new cases of cancer diagnosed each year, according to the Cancer Atlas.

Reducing tobacco use would have the greatest affect on global cancer rates, health officials said. Improving nutrition and reducing infection by cancer-causing viruses and bacteria could also cut rates dramatically, they said.

"We know with cancer, if we take action now, we can save 2 million lives a year by 2020 and 6.5 million by 2040," said Dr. Judith Mackay, a World Health Organization senior policy adviser.

The new Cancer Atlas and updated Tobacco Atlas were released Monday at a International Union Against Cancer conference. The American Cancer Society published the two atlases with help from the Union, WHO and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Even if smoking rates decline worldwide, there will be a constant or even slightly increasing number of smokers due to population increases," said Michael Eriksen, director of the Institute of Public Health at Georgia State University.

An estimated 1.25 billion men and women smoke cigarettes now, according to the Tobacco Atlas.

[Tonya]

Good find.
In my state alone (Indiana) tobacco claims an average of 27 lives per day.

[Gold9472]

It's a "Good find" if you're an anti-Tobacco advocate, which I'm not. The ONLY thing in my opinion that the Tobacco companies did that was wrong, was lace the tobacco with addictive substances, and say early on that there's nothing wrong with smoking.

It's ultimately the person's decision as to whether or not they want to smoke.

[AuGmENTor]

Or is it that all the shit flyin around at any given time is what is to blame, and tobacco is a convenient scapegoat? Before you get your bowels in an uproar, listen: I know ALOT of heavy smokers who live today that are in their seventies. I know people who have never smoked (or been AROUND smoke, before you even start) that have died at forty from lung and other cancers. Riddle me this: Why is atshma* up 600% in the last 30 years among NON-smokers? I'm not saying smoking doesn't take lives, surely it does. But are we unilaterally to believe the same people we question about everything else? Riddle me this: Seat belts are mandatory almost everywhere else because they save lives. If cigarettes were that bad, wouldn't they be totally illegal, like everything ELSE thats fun and bad for you?

[Tonya]

Yeah, well you know that I AM an anti-tobacco advocate and think it was a good find. I know you just report the news and let us decide. AND, I agree with what you say is the ONLY thing they did wrong except that that is not the only thing they have done wrong. But isn't it bad enough????????????????????? That was the first thing they did wrong. Subsequent lies and deception have continued. But, whatever right? Business as usuall.

[Gold9472]

Yeah, well you know that I AM an anti-tobacco advocate and think it was a good find. I know you just report the news and let us decide. AND, I agree with what you say is the ONLY thing they did wrong except that that is not the only thing they have done wrong. But isn't it bad enough????????????????????? That was the first thing they did wrong. Subsequent lies and deception have continued. But, whatever right? Business as usuall.

If someone wants to make the decision to smoke a cigarette, then that's their decision. They should be allowed to smoke non-addictive laced cigarettes, and the Tobacco companies should be stopped from doing that, but it is ultimately the person's decision.

[Tonya]

Hey did i say any different? I wasn't complaining about rights.

[Tonya]

"If cigarettes were that bad, wouldn't they be totally illegal"

Okay, I have heard this a million times more than I care to say.
To me, someone that has reserached it backward and forward, it comes off as saying something similar to the obvious truth that we all now know: "If the 9/11 was an inside job, the media would have told us"

I don't have the time to get into this. There is no debate anymore about how bad it is. the only debate is whether people should be able to smoke in enclosed public places and workplaces where there are non-smokers.

That is my opinion anyway. That is all I'm going to say about the matter.

[Chana3812]

Tobacco companies made cigs addictive. That was wrong from the get-go!!

[AuGmENTor]

I love to smoke, but I totally agree that people should not smoke in enclosed (public) areas. Or the workplace for that matter. That infringes on the rights of others.

[Cloak & Swagger]

The ONLY thing in my opinion that the Tobacco companies did that was wrong, was lace the tobacco with addictive substances, and say early on that there's nothing wrong with smoking.

It's ultimately the person's decision as to whether or not they want to smoke.
Gold, are you sure it's just the addictive substances, and not the other hundreds and hundreds of additional ingredients worth being concerned about?
I agree that it is the person's decision.
But I also believe that the tobacco companies share the responsibility with public in properly informing smokers and non-smokers on everything that is in their cigarettes.
The public should be informing themselves more often, and more thoroughly, but even with the information there, people don't seem to care much.
In those instances, it makes me really wonder if there's something genetically inherent in the human being that makes him/her embrace whatever guilty pleasure even at the ultimate expense of death.
Sure, the environment can instill the fixation, and western culture has no shortage of influence in that regard. But when the people are basically being told that they're killing themselves, and they keep doing it, well, I'm likely to believe that there's simply a genetic predisposition to seek temporary pleasure at the expense of death + tax, and these companies are simply capitalizing on this trait.

[YouCrazyDiamond]

It does seem like a hit piece on tobacco.

For instance, the number of total deaths expected in the 21st century is not mentioned.

And the fact that people make a choice that will potentially shorten their lives by a few years is their's to make. I doubt, however, that it takes all that big a toll one way or the other on human civilization, not even with regard to total costs.

How long we live does not really matter, either. What matters is what we do while we are here.

And yes, it is disgustingly sinister that the tobacco is laced with other ingredients to enhance the addictive qualities. I'll bet these are at least as bad and probably harder on the body with regard to carcinogenic action.

Also, that "fairness" about not subjecting other people to the smoke is most appropriate.