-
The Habit Buries the OppositionAwake!—1986 | April 8
-
-
Meanwhile, cigarettes emerged as one of the world’s most profitable industries, now chalking up annual sales worth over $40 billion (U.S.).
Economically the industry today is stronger than ever. Customers keep buying. Yearly consumption is rising by 1 percent annually in the industrialized countries and by over 3 percent in the developing countries of the Third World. In Pakistan and Brazil, the growth is respectively six and eight times faster than in most Western countries. One fifth of Thailand’s individual income is used to buy cigarettes.
-
-
Facing the Facts: Tobacco TodayAwake!—1986 | April 8
-
-
By 1980 Americans were buying 135 billion more cigarettes yearly than in 1964, in spite of the surgeon general’s warning of health risk that appears on every pack! The fact is, the world now buys four trillion cigarettes a year.
Whether you personally smoke or not, the money in the tobacco business these days should tell you that governments and politicians are not likely to end the tobacco trade. In the United States, for example, although 350,000 people die each year due to cigarette smoking, tobacco furnishes $21 billion in taxes. It also supplies jobs, directly or indirectly, for two million people. And tobacco companies are big spenders. Worldwide, they spend $2 billion (U.S.) a year on advertising—dwarfing the combined $7 million that the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association spend on antismoking education.
-