Tobacco use - Although, tobacco use has attracted a great deal of attention in the United States, 1.3 billion people smoke around the world with five percent or nearly 50 million of them living in the united States. More than five million people die each year from tobacco use worldwide. If current trends continue, tobacco will kill 10 million people a year by 2020; 70 percent of those deaths will occur in developing countries. Every day the tobacco companies increase their marketing efforts to addict more smokers around the globe, focusing especially on the "untapped markets" of women and children in the developing world. (more)

Tobacco Industry Influence - Published research studies have found that kids are three times more sensitive to tobacco advertising than adults and are more likely to be influenced to smoke by cigarette marketing than by peer pressure, and that one-third of underage experimentation with smoking is attributable to tobacco company advertising.

Buying Influence, Selling Death - The impact of tobacco industry contributions is evident in the recent debate over legislation to grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco products. A House-Senate conference committee killed the FDA legislation in October 2004 when a majority of the Senate conferees voted for it, but a majority of House conferees did not. Conference committee members who voted against the FDA legislation received, on average, nearly five times as much in tobacco industry PAC contributions as those who voted for the legislation. Those voting against FDA authority received on average $27,255 in tobacco political action committee PAC contributions from 1999 to 2004, while those voting for the legislation received on average $5,505 in tobacco PAC contributions. (more)

Smoking-Caused Monetary Costs - The indirect costs of smoking include health costs caused by exposure to secondhand smoke, smoking-caused fires, spit tobacco use, or cigar and pipe smoking. Other non-health costs from tobacco use include residential and commercial property losses from smoking-caused fires (more than $500 million per year nationwide); extra cleaning and maintenance costs made necessary by tobacco smoke and litter (about $4+ billion nationwide for commercial establishments alone); and additional productivity losses from smoking-caused work absences, smoking breaks, and on-the-job performance declines and early termination of employment caused by smoking-caused disability or illness.

Deaths From Smoking - Smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined -- and thousands more die from other tobacco-related causes -- such as fires caused by smoking (more than 1,000 deaths/year nationwide) and smokeless tobacco use. No good estimates are currently available, however, for the number of U.S. citizens who die from these other tobacco-related causes, or for the much larger numbers who suffer from tobacco-related health problems each year without actually dying.

Federal Trade Commission Smokeless Tobacco Report - This report is the latest in a series on smokeless tobacco sales, advertising and promotion that the Federal Trade Commission ("the Commission") has prepared biennially since 1987. The statistical tables contained within this report provide information on domestic smokeless tobacco sales and advertising and promotional activities for the Years 2000 and 2001. Commission staff prepared these tables using information collected, pursuant to compulsory process, from the five major manufacturers of smokeless tobacco products in the United States: Conwood Company, National Tobacco Company, Swedish Match North America, Inc., Swisher International, Inc., and United States Smokeless Tobacco Company ("USSTC"). (Full report)

Big Tobacco Still Targeting Kids - The 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco companies prohibited the tobacco companies from taking "any action, directly or indirectly, to target youth... in the advertising, promotion or marketing of tobacco products." However, since the settlement, the tobacco companies have increased their cigarette marketing expenditures by 125 percent to a record $15.4 billion a year, or $42.5 million a day, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Much of this marketing is still targeted at kids. (Full report)