Smoking among men has started to decline for the first time, WHO says
- The new trend was the result of governments being tough on the tobacco industry
- Every year, more than 8 million people die from the effects of tobacco
The number of male tobacco users is falling for the first time, the World Health Organisation said Thursday, hailing a “major shift” in efforts to kick the world’s deadly tobacco addiction.
The number of women and girls who use tobacco products has been steadily declining for years. But tobacco use among males – who account for the overwhelming majority of smokers – has until now been expanding.
In a new report, the UN health agency hailed the beginning decline as a powerful indication that anti-smoking campaigns around the globe had begun to pay off.
But it warned that far more was needed to kick the addiction, which is estimated to kill some eight million people each year.
“Declines in tobacco use amongst males mark a turning point in the fight against tobacco,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement, saying the shift was “driven by governments being tougher on the tobacco industry”.
For the past two decades, global tobacco use has been slowly dwindling, from 1.397 billion users in 2000 to 1.337 billion in 2018. This means around 60 million fewer people were using tobacco products, even as the global populations has swollen.