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• Global Epidemic of Female Smokers Concerns Experts 

Smoking among women is rising sharply at the same time rates among men are falling. That's the finding of a new report called Turning a New Leaf: Women, Tobacco and the Future, released at the 2006 International Cancer and Tobacco Control Conferences in Washington this month

The report calls attention to the health threat that tobacco use is posing to women in the 21st century. Twelve percent of the world's women smoke and by 2025, the projection is 20 percent if current trend continues according to Lorraine Greaves, executive director of the International Network of Women Against Tobacco, who authored the report. . . .

Health experts at the 2006 International Cancer and Tobacco Conferences, where the report was released, called on the global community to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. That agreement, ratified by 134 nations, bans tobacco advertising, requires health warnings on tobacco products and advocates smoke-free public spaces. Greaves says it is urgent that nations accept these provisions.

"Even if their rates of women smoking in their population are still low at two or five percent, they should come in with gender-specific cessation programs right away and not wait until the problem is at 50 or 60 percent."

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