According to the World Health Organization more than half billion young people are being targeted by the tobacco companies as they associating smoking to glamorous and attractive lifestyles.

The World Health Organization explains that tobacco companies are just cashing the innocence of young people who are greatly influenced by attractive advertising and have begun to reckon smoking a must for an elegant lifestyle. W.H.O is going to mark World No Tobacco Day on Saturday.

Shigeru Omi, W.H.O’s regional director for the Western Pacific states that there is a flood of messages through billboards, newspaper, radio and television ads and all of them intend to befool young people to try their first cigarette.

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“Five million people were killed due to smoking in the year of 2000 alone and half the deaths of the smokers aged 30 to 69” – researchers from Harvard University and the University of Queensland have calculated.

The major cause of death was cardiovascular disease. The heart disease alone killed over 670,000 in the developing counties and 1 million people in the developed countries. Lung cancer due to smoking killed over 500,000 people in the developed world. Chronic obstructive airways disease (COPD), bronchitis has also killed more people.

“We must not forget that there are real people with these statistics like mothers, fathers, and loved-ones who have suffered lost up to 30 years of life because of their smoking addiction”. - Said Amanda Sandford, of the anti-smoking charity Ash.

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