Smoking "to kill 6 million next year"

       Tobacco use will kill six million people next year from cancer,heart disease, emphysema and a range of other ills, global cancer experts said in a report issued on Tuesday.
       The new Tobacco Atlas from the World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society estimates that tobacco use costs the global economy $500 billion a year in direct medical expenses, lost productivity and environmental harm.
       "Tobacco's total economic costs reduce national wealth in terms of gross domestic product [GDP] by as much as 3.6%," the report reads.
       "Tobacco accounts for one out of every 10 deaths worldwide and will claim 5.5 million lives this year alone," the report said. If current trends hold, by 2020, the number will grow to an estimated 7 million and top 8 million by 2030.
       Last week the US Food and Drug Administration launched a tobacco centre to oversee cigarettes and other related products, after winning the power to do so from Congress in June. On Tuesday it set up a committee of advisers to help guide it.
       Over the past four decades, smoking rates have declined in rich countries like the United States, Britain and Japan while rising in much of the developing world, according to the non-profit research and advocacy organisations.
       Some other findings from the report,available at http:// www.tobaccoatlas.org/:
       One billion men smoke -35% of men in rich countries and 50% of men in developing countries.
       About 250 million women smoke daily -22% of women in developed countries and 9%of women in developing countries.
       Tobacco use will eventually kill 250 million of today's teenagers and children.
       One hundred million people were killed by tobacco in the 20th century.
       Unless effective measures are implemented to prevent young people from smoking and to help current smokers quit, tobacco will kill one billion people in the 21st century, the report predicts.
       China by far leads the world in cigarette production followed by the United States,Russia and Japan.