Section 3: Tracking and Ending the Epidemic
The final section of the 50th anniversary Surgeon
General’s report on smoking and health covers the human
and economic costs of the smoking epidemic in the United
States, current trends in tobacco use and tobacco control,
the status of interventions and programs that address the
smoking epidemic, and a vision for a future that is free of
death and disease caused by tobacco use.
Throughout this report, the overwhelming harm
done to this nation’s health by cigarette smoking is made
clear repeatedly. Accumulated data from the past 50 years
graphically illustrate the devastating loss of life and the
economic waste that have flowed from the manufacture,
marketing, sale, and consumption of combustible tobacco
products. In this half-century, nearly 25 trillion cigarettes
have been consumed, despite a significant drop in consumption
per smoker (Figure 2). The annual costs attributed
to smoking in the United States are between $289
billion and $333 billion, including at least $130 billion
for direct medical care of adults over $150 billion for lost
productivity due to premature death, and more than $5
billion for lost productivity from premature death due to
exposure to secondhand smoke (Chapter 12).