Introduction

Abstract

Worldwide, lung cancer is the most common malignant disease in males and, given the overall increase in tobacco consumption in densely populated regions, this may also be the case in women in the coming years. Over 1 million people die from lung cancer each year and without effective prevention, the lung cancer burden is projected to increase to 2.2 million new cases per annum by 2030.1 The importance of tobacco control and cancer control programs is obvious, and, fortunately, more resources are being given to this area. As of January 2006, 121 countries had ratified the WHO’ s framework convention on tobacco control (FTCT), the first global public health treatise, and the details of how this treatise will be implemented are just beginning to emerge. However, the multinational cigarette companies continue to act as a vector that spreads the disease and death through the world. This is largely because the tobacco industry uses its wealth to influence politicians to create a favorable environment to promote smoking, as pointed out by Sebrié and Glantz2 in an editorial in the British Medical Journal using examples from Uzbekistan and Mexico. The public smoking bans initiated some years ago in countries such as Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Malta, Italy, and Sweden are starting to have an impact. Gorini et al3 from Italy showed that after the ban on smoking in enclosed public places came into force in Italy on January 10, 2005, environmental nicotine concentrations in four pubs and three discos in Florence and concentrations of particulate matter with diameter < 2.5 µm in 50 hospital premises in Milan, Trieste, and Rome dropped to 70-97 % of the concentrations recorded before the ban. In 2005 total sales of cigarettes in Italy decreased by 6.1% in comparison to 2004, from 98.8 to 92.8 million kg. Smoking prevalence decreased from 2004 to 2006 by 7.3%, from 26.2% to 24.3%.