FINALLY, THE WORLD BEGINS TO PUT OUT ITS CIGARETTES

WASHINGTON -- After a century-long buildup in cigarette smoking, the
world is turning away from cigarettes, following the lead of the
United States. In 1999 cigarettes smoked per person m the U.S. fell by
8 percent and for the world as a whole by more than 3 percent.

The U.S. trend is driven by a deepening awareness of the
health-damaging effects of smoking. Rising cigarette prices and taxes,
aggressive anti smoking campaigns in several states and a decline in
the social acceptability of smoking also helped damp demand.

Smoking is declining in nearly all the major cigarette consuming
countries, including such bastions of smoking as France, China and
Japan. The number of cigarettes smoked per person has dropped 19
percent in France since peaking in 1985, 8 percent in China since 1990
and 4 percent in Japan since 1992, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's world tobacco database.

Evidence of the damaging effects of cigarette smoking on human health
continues to accumulate. Today there are some 25 known tobacco-related
diseases, including heart disease, strokes, respiratory illnesses,
several forms of cancer and male impotence.

One of the mainstays of California's highly successful antismoking
campaign is a television commercial in which a man's flirtation with a
woman fails when the cigarette in his mouth begins to droop.
Experience indicates that while adolescent males may not be
particularly worried about their mortality, they are concerned about
their sexuality. In Thailand, cigarette packs carry the warning
"Cigarette smoking causes sexual impotence."

Smoking takes a heavy human toll. The World Health Organization
estimates that 4 million people die prematurely each year from smoking
cigarettes. The 400,000 lives claimed each year by smoking-related
illnesses in the United States matches the number of Americans who
died in World War II In China, smoking takes an estimated 2,000 lives
a day.

Over the years, mounting evidence of the effect of smoking on health
gradually undermined the tobacco industry's steadfast denial of such a
link. As it did so, the industry lost credibility. Cigarette
manufacturers began to lose expensive lawsuits as juries held them
responsible for health damage to smokers. To cover costs, cigarette
manufacturers raised prices. But as they did so, state governments
raised cigarette taxes.

The states also insisted that the Tobacco Institute, the industry's
powerful lobbying aim, be dismantled. On Jan. 29, 1999, the Institute,
one of the best funded lobbies in Washington, with a full-time staff
of 60, closed its doors.

Restrictions on cigarette advertising, which began with a ban on
television and radio ads in the United States, are spreading. For
example, the European Union recently passed legislation prohibiting
all advertising of cigarettes by 2006. Bans on smoking are also
spreading. The American total ban on smoking on airplanes has been
widely adopted by airlines in other countries. The same thing is
happening in restaurants, on public transportation and in the workplace.

Until recently, U.S. cigarette manufacturers were not overly concerned
that Americans were smoking fewer cigarettes because they saw a huge
market opening in the developing world. But they failed to take into
account the globalization of the antismoking effort. Indeed, several
Third World governments are suing U.S. tobacco companies in U.S.
courts, seeking to recover their costs of treating smoking-related
illnesses.

As the social costs of smoking become more visible, and as the number
of smoking-related deaths climbs, the global anti-smoking campaign is
gathering momentum. Governments that once saw cigarettes only as a
source of revenue are now also looking at the spiraling costs of
treating smoking-related illnesses.

Meanwhile, the challenge is to sustain the decline in smoking by
expanding the worldwide educational effort on its adverse health
effects, further restricting advertising, extending the bans on
smoking in public places and workplaces and raising taxes on
cigarettes to a level that more fully reflects their cost to society.

The goal should be to make smoking as socially unacceptable as it is
costly to human health and the economy.