What's that going up in smoke?

Facing greater restrictions in the United States and other industrialized countries, transnational tobacco companies have intensified the marketing of their products in developing countries, particularly among women and adolescents.

For the past several years, multinationals such as Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds and British-American Tobacco have been expanding rapidly in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

While the percentage of smokers in some industrialized countries is falling by about 1 percent a year, in developing countries it is increasing by about 3 percent a year. It is estimated that if this trend continues for the next 30 years, smoking-related diseases will kill up to 7 million people a year in developing countries.