Male and female cigarette use across the world

SMOKING kills. It is a fact that has been drilled into the minds of Western schoolchildren and plastered on roadside billboards. Thanks to taxes, education and smoke-free policies, consumption in Western Europe dropped by 26% between 1990 and 2009. But this decline has been more than offset by a jump elsewhere, according to the newest Tobacco Atlas from the American Cancer Society and the World Lung Foundation. From 1990 to 2009, for example, consumption jumped by 57% in the Middle East and Africa. In emerging markets, men are leading the trend. About 800m men smoke cigarettes, compared with fewer than 200m women. More than 80% of these male smokers are in low- and middle-income countries. The problem is particularly acute in China, where 50% of men smoke (compared with just 2% of women), consuming one-third of the world's cigarettes in the process.