THE MOSCOW TIMES: With 44 million adults, or almost 40 percent of the population, Russia has the biggest percentage of adult smokers among the 14 countries surveyed by the World Health Organization.More adults smoke in Russia than in any other heavy-smoking country, and their average life expectancy is one of the shortest among former Soviet countries, according to two separate but thematically linked reports released Tuesday.
Politicians and analysts said the popularity of smoking, which contributes to worsening demographics by killing up to 500,000 Russians a year, could be stopped through tougher regulations, but tobacco producers have blocked all efforts for years, successfully lobbying their interests with the ruling United Russia party.
With 44 million adults, or almost 40 percent of the population, Russia has the biggest percentage of adult smokers among the 14 countries surveyed by the World Health Organization in a poll presented at a Moscow conference Tuesday.
More than 60 percent of Russian men and almost 22 percent of Russian women smoke, according to the WHO's Global Adult Tobacco Survey.
The poll also covered Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam — countries that “bear the highest burden of tobacco use,” the survey said.
The survey is "not a document but a call to take action," Luigi Migliorini, acting head of the WHO's Russia office, said at a conference where the report was presented Tuesday, RIA-Novosti reported.
Some 400,000 to 500,000 Russians a year die from smoking-related causes, a figure that accounts for 17 percent of the country's yearly mortality rate, a co-author of the report, Oleg Storozhenko, told the conference, Interfax reported.
Separately, a study the Audit Chamber released on Tuesday said Russia lagged behind most other former Soviet republics in life expectancy. >>> Natalya Krainova | Wednesday, November 10, 2010
