Smoking On The Rise Worldwide But Down In The West

There is good news and bad news as far as smoking goes these days. The good news is that smoking in the U.S. is at its lowest rate since records have been kept to track it as a statistic. It's currently at about 24%. The trend is the same in other western countries as well and it is mostly due to the ever rising taxes that western governments are placing on cigarettes in order to make the habit less and less affordable to the masses in an attempt to get people to give it up. The latest example of this came from President Obama who earlier in the year signed a law raising the federal cigarette tax on a pack of smokes from 32 cents to $1. The bad news is that smoking in all other parts of the world is rising sharply. It has been estimated that tobacco companies worldwide produce over 5 trillion cigarettes each year. That is over 800 cigarettes for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Here now is a list of the world's top ten countries for smokers and the percentages of their populations that currently engage in the habit: 1. Russia 48.5%. 2. Britain 35.7%. 3. Turkey 35.5%. 4. China 31.8%. 5. France 31.7%. 6. Germany 31.6%. 7. Japan 29.4%. 8. Malaysia 28.8%. 9. Ireland 26.3% 10. Italy 26.1%. (The U.S. ranked 15th on the list at 23.9%) These rankings come from the World Health Organization.