Death and Tobacco Taxes
Benjamin Franklin once said, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Yet more widespread use of at least one tax - on tobacco – could prevent hundreds of millions of premature deaths.
A global killer is ripping through the world’s poorer countries largely unchecked. Within 25 years, it will cause 10 million deaths a year worldwide –more than malaria, maternal deaths, childhood infections, and diarrhea combined . Over half of the dead will be aged 30 to 69, losing about 25 years of life expectancy. The culprit? Tobacco. The same addiction that became the top preventable cause of death in Western countries has made big inroads in developing countries. Smoking killed 100 million people in the twentieth century, mostly in developed countries. On current trends smoking will kill about one billion people in the twenty-first century, mostly in developing countries.
A global killer is ripping through the world’s poorer countries largely unchecked. Within 25 years, it will cause 10 million deaths a year worldwide –more than malaria, maternal deaths, childhood infections, and diarrhea combined . Over half of the dead will be aged 30 to 69, losing about 25 years of life expectancy. The culprit? Tobacco. The same addiction that became the top preventable cause of death in Western countries has made big inroads in developing countries. Smoking killed 100 million people in the twentieth century, mostly in developed countries. On current trends smoking will kill about one billion people in the twenty-first century, mostly in developing countries.