“For the first time the number of tobacco users is declining worldwide”, 
Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of the Department of Health Promotion at the World Health Organization (WHO), told journalists on Wednesday in Geneva.
In 2018, there were slightly more than a billion males using tobacco around the world, “over 40 million more than in the year 2000,” he said. “But now for the first time, we are seeing declines in use, with WHO projecting that there will be at least two million fewer men using tobacco in 2020, and five million less by 2025.”
Describing the development as a “powerful shift in the global tobacco epidemic” in view of the fact that more than four in five smokers are male, Dr Krech explained that it mirrors “consistent reductions” by 100 million women since the turn of the century.
This progress proves that national tobacco control measures work, Dr Krech insisted, citing taxation and controlled smoking areas in public places, and other legislation that prevents children from being exposed to tobacco.
Showing that tobacco use can be reversed should also give Governments confidence that they can meet the global target of a 30 per cent reduction in tobacco use by 2025, the WHO official maintained.
Despite the positive trend, however, the world is not on track to meet this target, he insisted, noting also that more than eight million people die from tobacco use every year – approximately half of its users.
WHO said that more than seven million of those deaths are from direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million fatalities are non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke.
The UN agency insists that most tobacco-related deaths occur in low and middle-income countries, areas that are targets of intensive tobacco industry interference and marketing.
Dr. Krech expressed dissatisfaction in the slow decline since over a billion people are still using tobacco. He also insisted on accelerating the tobacco control measures to prevent current and future generations from tobacco use.
