According to WHO estimates, there are currently 4 million deaths a year from tobacco, a figure expected to rise to about 10 million by the 2020s or early 2030s.  By that date, based on current smoking trends, tobacco is predicted to be the leading cause of disease burden in the world, causing about one in eight deaths. 70% of those deaths will occur in developing countries. The sheer scale of tobacco's impact on global disease burden, and particularly what is likely to happen without appropriate intervention in developing countries, is often not fully appreciated. The
extremely negative impact of tobacco on health now and in the future is the primary reason for giving explicit and strong support to tobacco control on a world-wide basis.

Tobacco use is widespread. At the beginning of this decade at least one-third of the global adult population, or 1.1 billion people, used tobacco. Although overall tobacco use is decreased in many developed countries, it increased in most developing countries. An estimated 48% of men and 7% of women in developing countries smoked; in industrialized countries, 42% of men and 24% of women smoked, representing a marked increase among women. Tobacco use is a pediatric epidemic, as well. Most tobacco use starts during childhood and adolescence.

Tobacco kills. A long-term tobacco user has a 50% chance of dying prematurely from tobacco-caused disease. Each year, tobacco causes some 4 million premature deaths, with 1 million of these occurring in countries that can least afford the health-care burden. This epidemic is predicted to kill 250 million children and adolescents who are alive today, a third of whom live in developing countries. By the year 2030, tobacco likely will be the world's leading cause of death and disability, killing more than 10 million people annually and claiming more lives than HIV, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, motor vehicle accidents, suicide, and homicide combined.

Tobacco products are highly addictive. Because tobacco products are carefully designed to undermine efforts to quit using them, quitting is not simply a matter of choice for the majority of tobacco users. Instead, it involves a struggle to overcome an addiction. Tobacco use typically is woven into everyday life, and can be physiologically, psychologically, and socially reinforcing. Many factors combine with tobacco's addictive capacity to make quitting difficult, including media depictions and cultural and societal acceptance of tobacco use.