Hmm seems like worldwide tobacco use is not on the decline after all....
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1910971,00.htmlThere are a lot of ways to divide the world--rich and poor, east and west, industrial and agrarian. Now add one more: smoking and nonsmoking. In the U.S. and other developed countries, Big Tobacco is on the run, chased to the curbs by a combination of lawsuits, smoking bans and high taxes. Fewer than 20% of Americans now smoke--the lowest rate since reliable records have been kept. President Barack Obama recently signed laws boosting federal cigarette taxes from 32¢ a pack to $1 and giving the FDA the power to regulate cigarettes like any other food or drug.
But the West is not the world, and elsewhere, smoking is exploding. This year tobacco companies will produce more than 5 trillion cigarettes--or about 830 for every person on the planet. In China, 350 million people are currently hooked on tobacco, which means the country has more smokers than the U.S. has people. Smoking rates in Indonesia have quintupled since 1970.
