Chapter seven
Quantifying the future
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Smoke Free Europe - A Forum for Networks
egatrends in public health can be seen as numbers hidden in official
statistics, but it doesn't take more than a glance at the forecasts
of the effects of tobacco use worldwide to see that the megatrend
after the next 20 or 30 years is likely to be megadeath. Globalism
and the blind dash to open vast new markets bring with them the
chance of a sustainable and lucrative future for the tobacco industry.
But this same globalism can also bring about an altered view of
our world in which greater interdependency is perceived, and the
scourge of health problems caused by more people in developing
countries taking up tobacco use understood as a crisis that hurts
us all. As the agendas of international health promotion become
increasingly focused on tackling epidemics, it becomes obvious
that smoke-free issues are central to global efforts for prevention
and cure.