CIGARETTES AND SOCIETY

Marketing and consumption of tobacco products vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and from country to country. The following statistics show how the tobacco industry targets different populations and how smoking affects people worldwide.

• Billboards advertising tobacco products are placed in African American communities four to five times more often than in white communities.

In 1985, tobacco companies spent 5.8 million dollars for advertisements on 8-foot billboards in African American communities, accounting for 37 percent of total advertising in this medium.

• Not only do cigarette companies advertise heavily in popular black magazines, they also successfully target the African American community by sponsoring entertainment, sporting, and cultural events and political and literacy campaigns.
• Developing nations often lack the legislative controls necessary to regulate tobacco use. In many of these countries, cigarettes are sold without the warning label required in the countries where they are manufactured. American cigarettes sold in the Philippines contain more tar and nicotine and produce more carbon monoxide than do the same brands sold in the United States. Cigarettes sold in Asia have a higher tar content than do cigarettes sold in Western countries.
• In order to increase sales in developing countries, promotional ads are often aimed at women. The reason for this is simple: half the men in developing countries already smoke, whereas only 5 percent of the women do. In contrast, about 30 percent of both men and women in most industrialized countries are smokers.
• As the smoking of tobacco has become a popular habit around the world, it has taken a tremendous toll. Worldwide, tobacco use is responsible for 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths, 75 percent of bronchitis deaths, and 25 percent of cardiovascular deaths. The World Health Organization

(WHO) estimates that every year over 2.5 million people die prematurely as a result of smoking cigarettes.

• In China, a research team has declared a "public health emergency" due to smoking-related diseases. Cases of lung cancer are increasing by 4.5 percent a year. It is estimated that some 300 million Chinese smoke - about 60 percent of men but less than 10 percent of women. Smoking is so popular in China that the Chinese are willing to spend up to 60 percent of their personal income on cigarettes. "There are more smokers in China than there are people in the U.S.," noted Tom Houston, director of the American Medical Associations Department of Preventive Medicine.
• In developing countries, many smokers are unaware of the risks of tobacco use. For example, a study in China showed that most smokers thought smoking did little or no harm.
• Smoking is declining among men in most high-income countries. In contrast, it is increasing among men in most low- and middle-income countries and among women worldwide.
• It is estimated that the number of children and young people taking up smoking ranges from 68,000 to 84,000 in low- and middle-income countries every day.

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