France has 1.6 million fewer daily smokers since 2016, the government announced this Monday 25th March, 2018. Details.
The number of daily smokers has dropped by 1.6 million since 2016, said the government on Monday 25th March, before the holding in the afternoon of an Interdepartmental Committee devoted to health .
Some 600,000 daily smokers quit smoking in the first half of 2018. They are adding to the one-million drop that was observed in 2017 and was described as “historic” by the government last year.
The public authorities attribute this sharp decrease to the various measures taken to fight against tobacco: gradual increase in the price of the package up to 10 euros by 2020, reimbursement of nicotine substitutes by the Health Insurance and operation Month without tobacco in November ( which aims to encourage the maximum of smokers to stop).
78,000 deaths a year
Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in France, causing some 78,000 deaths a year (more than 200 people a day), which is responsible for cancer and cardiovascular diseases .
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco kills more than 7 million people a year worldwide , including nearly 900,000 who do not even smoke and are exposed to the smoke of others.
