烟草生产和消耗

　　tobacco production and consumption

　　we meet smokers almost everywhere , in the st reet , in shops , at the railway station , on the camp us and in many other public a reas . t his explains the astonis hing sta tistic figure of 1. 1 billion smokers out of 5. 6 billion people in the world , occupying about 20% of the world’s population .

　　the ha rmful effect that smoking has upon people mainly lies in two aspects : money los s and health deterioration . in the figure , we can see that the annual consumption of tobacco amounts to 200 billion dollars , which , if spent on public welfare , can benefit a great many poor people .

　　it is known to all that smoking does a lot of ha rm, not only to smokers themselves , but also to people a round who are actually unconscious victims . according to the statistics obtained , approxima tely 3 million people die of lung cance r and other fat al diseases every year .

　　for tunately , nowadays more and more people have become awa re of the harmful effect of smoking . tobacco consumption is decr easing . tobacco production is decreasing ( has dropped to 14 .2 billion pounds in 1995 as against 14 .364 billion pounds in 1994 ) . the numbe r of smokers is decreasing . finally , we believe in the advance of society , we believe in a new world without smoking , we believe in people .