Vol. 21 · No. 3 · Issue 68 · Fall 2003

Alice H. Cooper and Paulette Kurzer

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Abstract

The puzzle explored in this article is why Germany, in spite of its superb record in environmental policy and health care, has systematically thwarted measures to reduce smoking rates. At this point, thousands of large-scale epidemiological findings demonstrate a relationship between smoking and disease. Moreover, unlike alcohol, there is no safe amount of smoking. Cigarettes kill, and smoking is the single largest source of preventable death in advanced industrialized states. By various estimates, tobacco kills 500,000 Europeans per year, including 120,000 Germans. Globally, in the years 2025 to 2030, smoking will kill 7 million people in the developing world and 3 million in the industrialized world. No other consumer product is as dangerous as tobacco, which kills more people than AIDS, legal and illegal drugs, road accidents, murder, and suicide combined.