A growing cloud over the planet: smoking is declining in the West, but it's on the rise in countries like China and India.

• Author: Marsh, Bill
• Position: HEALTH - Brief article

Nearly half of the world's 1.3 billion smokers live in China, India, and Indonesia, the three largest consumers of tobacco products. In China alone, more people smoke than live in the United States.

Those three countries and others in the developing world represent promising markets for tobacco companies, which are trying to win over existing smokers and, according to a new report by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), convince more women and teenagers to light up.

Smoking has declined slowly in the West. But over the last four decades, the number of smokers has grown steadily in the developing world. In fact, during that time, the respective shares of global cigarette consumption between rich and poor nations flipped (see graph, near right).

Tobacco products are already responsible for about 5.4 million deaths a year from lung cancer, heart disease, and...