100 million deaths in the 20th century – thanks to the cigarette!

By the year 2000, it was estimated that 1.1 million people were dying annually from cancer, with about 85% of those cases stemming from a single cause – tobacco.

“The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation,” says Robert Proctor of Stanford University. “It killed about 100 million people in the 20th Century.”

Have a look at the article by the BBC: James Buchanan Duke: Father of the modern cigarette and their video on Why we smoke.

Maybe they will help you avoid the devil weed.  (Though I’m no angel having smoked for a decade and still will puff a cheroot at a party to be a bit rebellious!)