Tobacco’s Death Toll
Some people have questioned the number of deaths due to tobacco use. Who could believe that (nearly) half a million Americans (435,000, according to authorities) die each year as a direct result of using tobacco?
Yet 435,000, give or take a few loved ones, is just the number of people that have died in the United States. Do Mexicans count? There are 1 billion Chinese people, roughly four times the population of the United States. Do Chinese smoke? Do Chinese die from tobacco use as well as Americans? If the answer is yes, then we are talking more than 2 million American and Chinese people being killed each year as a direct result of using tobacco.
And what about the other 4 billion people living in the rest of the world, do they count?
JIM WALKER
Santa Ana
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