© World Health Organization 2004

“Tobacco and poverty” is a package developed for the World No Tobacco Day 2004 campaign. “Tobacco increases the poverty of countries” illustrates how tobacco not only impoverishes those who use it, it puts an enormous financial burden on countries. The costs of tobacco use at the national level encompass increased health care costs, lost productivity due to illness and early death, foreign exchange losses and environmental damage.

It also shows the tobacco industry’s desperate attempts to stave off sensible regulation through overstating the employment and trade benefits of tobacco to developing countries and raising the spectre of massive job losses in order to deter governments from moving to protect public health.