Social inequalities in male mortality, and in male mortality from smoking:

The Lancet: "In each country, there was about a two-fold difference between the highest and the lowest social strata in overall risks of dying among men aged 35�69 years (England and Wales 21% vs 43%, USA 20% vs 37%, Canada 21% vs 34%, Poland 26% vs 50%: four-country mean 22% vs 41%, four-country mean absolute difference 19%). More than half of this difference in mortality between the top and bottom social strata involved differences in risks of being killed at age 35�69 years by smoking (England and Wales 4% vs 19%, USA 4% vs 15%, Canada 6% vs 13%, Poland 5% vs 22%: four-country mean 5% vs 17%, four-country mean absolute difference 12%). Smoking-attributed mortality accounted for nearly half of total male mortality in the lowest social stratum of each country.
Conclusion
In these populations, most, but not all, of the substantial social inequalities in adult male mortality during the 1990s were due to the effects of smoking. Widespread cessation of smoking could eventually halve the absolute differences between these social strata in the risk of premature death."

Tobacco could kill 1 billion this century if current trends hold - Jul 10, 2006

CNN - Tobacco could kill 1 billion this century if current trends hold - Jul 10, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- If current trends hold, tobacco will kill a billion people this century, 10 times the toll it took in the 20th century, public health officials said Monday.
Tobacco accounts for one in five cancer deaths, or 1.4 million deaths worldwide each year, according to two new reference guides that chart global tobacco use and cancer. Lung cancer remains the major cancer among the 10.9 million new cases of cancer diagnosed each year, according to the Cancer Atlas.

Smokin Cessation

Taylor & Francis Group - Article: "This is a personal retrospective in which I describe my career as a smoking cessation researcher and place cessation into an overall perspective of tobacco reduction. I spent approximately the first 15 years focusing primarily upon small group approaches to cessation emphasising relatively intensive behavioural interventions. It became apparent, however, that these types of approaches in isolation, even if broadly disseminated, would have relatively minimal impact on overall tobacco use. In part because I became discouraged with the potential of group programmes to reduce overall smoking prevalence, I began to focus more on population-based studies, especially in the context of ‘teachable moments’ including pregnancy, hospitalisation, forced abstinence in the military and existing smoking-related disease. I became concerned especially with the fact that there has been relatively little work with hard-core medically compromised smokers. It also became apparent that promoting cessation would be most likely to be effective with a comprehensive evidence-based tobacco reduction strategy including school and community-based prevention programmes, enforcement of ordinances restricting minors' access to tobacco, restrictions on tobacco advertising and promotion, counter advertising and strong smoke-free policies. In recent years I have become very concerned about the overall global tobacco epidemic and the projections of dramatically increasing tobacco morbidity and mortality in developing countries. I am now devoting my primary career emphasis to global tobacco reduction initiatives, including cessation research in India and Indonesia, cessation as part of broader tobacco reduction strategies and networking to increase resources and emphasis devoted to global tobacco reduction. [Lando HA. Reflections on 30+ years of smoking cessation research: from the individual to the world. Drug Alcohol Rev 2006;25:5–14]"

Tobacco & Hungary

Health 21 Hungarian Foundation: "Similarly, Hungary fell to transnational tobacco companies when these headed east in 1991-1992. During the past 15 years five multinational tobacco companies (British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Reemtsma and Imperial Tobacco) entered the Hungarian market and bought production facilities in the country. In spite of substantial tax concessions they were given by the Hungarian state four have already sold their interests (Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Reemtsma and Imperial Tobacco). In the years they spent in Hungary they paid less taxes than they could have been and withdrew an important share of their profits from the country. They left behind a social burden which amounts three to four times more than the state incomes from the entire tobacco sector.
Why should a country be partner in making wealthy tobacco companies wealthier against its own interests? This is a case study of a country which did not resist the pseudo-shining of tobacco investments and experienced the “living together” with the world’s richest tobacco transnationals."