MPOWER: a policy package to reverse the tobacco epidemic

Tobacco is the single greatest preventable cause of death in the world today, killing up to half the people who use it. More than one billion people worldwide currently smoke tobacco – about one quarter of adults – and tobacco use currently kills more than five million people worldwide each year. Tobacco use continues to grow in developing countries due to steady population growth along with aggressive tobacco industry marketing efforts.

If current trends continue, tobacco will kill more than eight million per year by 2030. By the end of this century, tobacco may kill a billion people. It is estimated that more than three quarters of these deaths will be in low- and middle-income countrie