Smoking to kill a billion people this century

obmar · Smoking to kill a billion people this century

http://in.reuters.com/article/blo...tWidgetId=B8vDVQshacoV6THAreGqth2

WHO: Smoking to kill 1 billion people this century Powered by BlogBurst
POSTED: Friday, February 08, 2008
FROM BLOG: FP Passport - A blog by the editors of Foreign Policy Magazine

The following blog post is from an independent writer and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.com.

When Mayor Mike Bloomberg raised New York city's tax on cigarettes from 8 cents a pack to $1.50 in 2002 (putting the total tax on a pack at about $3), a lot of my friends simply went out of state to buy cartons. But, faced with the prospect of $7 packs, a lot of them quit, too. Steep tax hikes on tobacco have always seemed to me to be the only way to depress smoking rates, a feat that smoking bans never really accomplish (though they do leave your clothes smelling far better at the end of an evening at the bar).

Bloomberg, a former smoker himself, has been a vocal anti-tobacco advocate since quitting more than two decades ago. He recently gave $2 million to finance the most comprehensive report on smoking around the world to date, which was unveiled by the WHO Thursday. He's also pledged $125 million more over the next two years for global anti-smoking efforts.

While progress has been made in many countries thanks to higher taxes and bans in public places (the unbelievable smoking ban in Paris cafes, for example), smoking is on the rise in the developing world. The WHO projects that one billion people, 80 percent of them in the developing world, will die of smoking-related illnesses by the end of the century if trends continue on their current trajectory.

Nearly two thirds of the world's smokers live in just 10 countries. In China, with about 30 percent of the world's smokers, perhaps 100 million men under the age of 30 will die of tobacco use unless they quit.

Harris Brio

Anyway we can blame Islam for that?...

Radiate_Truth

Zionists were getting tired of taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in this universe.

About damn time you take the blame for something...

Harris Brio

Radiate_Truth

What did I do wrong now Harris!

I believe R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) is second biggest behind the Altria Group, Inc. (previously named Philip Morris Companies Inc.)

What started making RJ Reynolds so popular is getting involved in Nascar Winston Cup Stock Car Racing...

Look how much that has grown since cars were running moonshine down them their dirt country roads...

Harris Brio

Despite Huckabee's extreme right wingness exemplified by his ultra-conservative socio/religio beliefs did not carry over to his taxation policies. In fact, he raised taxes(+ $500 million) in Arkansas more than any previous governor; taxes added onto the burdens of one of the most impoverished, most regressively taxed citizenry in the country.

Huckabee's greed fueled personal corruption has been well documented for decades by the highly respected editor of The Arkansas Times; Max Brantley. For example, in his successful 1994 run for lieutenant governor, he set up a nonprofit ruse known as Action America so he could give speeches for money without having to disclose the names of his benefactors. We have only recently discovered the primary benefactor for Action America was the R.J.Reynolds Tobacco Company.

But, perhaps his most blatant money grab was tied to his association with Ted Ruhl, founder of The Lord's Ranch: purportedly a faith-based mental health treatment facility for children.

During the course of its unfortunate existence, despite The Lord's Ranch history of being cited repeatedly for ethical, financial and 'other' violations; Suhl's venture, greatly abetted by Huckabee, seems to have been an extremely profitable enterprise.

The ranch is one of eight providers of mental health services that are paid by the state when, for instance, a juvenile offender is referred by a juvenile court for mental health services. It received $8.5 million from the state in 2005, up from $140,000 just five years earlier..... And Arkansas now spends more state monies per capita for juvenile psychiatric sevices than any other state in the country!

Radiate_Truth

Harris Brio

Good way for the state to make money. Classify some one, working two jobs to survive, as a non-fit parent. While state officals are out drinking and carrying on with hookers...

Radiate_Truth

Not just state...

The largest hospital down the street from where I live is privately owned. Not only treats patients physical ailments but has a whole floor dedicated to treat mental patients. I'm known several who were patients. They're no better than they were before they were admitted. Fact, they were treated for the wrong thing. Their problems were never emotional or mental, they were chemical dependency.