A new study published in The Lancet has shown that a record high of 1.1 billion people around the globe now smoke, reports the Guardian.

Population growth and the number of young people picking up the habit stand in opposition to the efforts being made to curb smoking, according to the study. In 2019, almost 8 million people lost their lives due to smoking and the study’s authors say that governments need to focus especially on young people.
“Young people are particularly vulnerable to addiction, and with high rates of cessation remaining elusive worldwide, the tobacco epidemic will continue for years to come unless countries can dramatically reduce the number of new smokers starting each year,” said the study’s lead author Marissa Reitsma, a researcher at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
An estimated 89 per cent of new smokers are addicted by age 25 whereas people over the age of 25 are unlikely to start smoking at all.
Overall, smoking has reduced globally, however, in certain countries it remains a problem. In fact, two thirds of the entire world’s smoking population is made up by only 10 countries.
In 2005, 182 countries signed a convention on tobacco control, however, according to the authors of the study, high taxation is not enough and more needs to be done in terms of prevention.
“Despite progress in some countries, tobacco industry interference and waning political commitment have resulted in a large and persistent gap between knowledge and action on global tobacco control,” said Vin Gupta, the study’s co-author.