Smoking bans and making the indoors totally smoking free, has furiously and successfully caught on in the developed nations of the world. In many portions of the world attempts have been successfully made to control smoking in the outdoors too. The important point is that in order to get a real grip on smoking these measures have to come into effect in every nook and corner of the world. Smoking is a universal epidemic and it is equally prevalent in almost all the parts of the world. And in majority of the places the smoke is still reigning supreme taking the environment and many innocent people in its fold.



Smoking is one of the most widespread addictions in the third world countries. But most of these nations are not doing anything substantial in order to tackle this problem. For innumerable reasons smoking and chewing tobacco are quite common in these countries. In India and Pakistan smoking is already an epidemic among the men and now it has lured even the urban women of these countries. More and more women are taking to smoking, that too the imported ones. Going by the trend the foreign cigarette companies are trying to rake in profits from the third world countries. The fact to notice is that Pakistan is a country that has got some anti smoking rules that have been passed. It is also a signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Inspite of that the smokers are free to pollute everything around them with the smoke. The most surprising thing is that the country is doing nothing substantial to curb the addiction. No offenders have been caught and even if they have, no penalties have been imposed. All this after 4 years of the country being a signatory. The scenario is not different in India too. Though miniscule attempts have been made here and there, the dream of a smoke free environment will take quite a long time to be realized. Among all the third world countries the African country of Nigeria is making some genuine attempts to save its environment and the people from the addiction of smoking by implementing bans. It has set itself the target of acquiring 100% exemption from the smoke by implementing various forms of bans on the addiction. In the third world countries smoking also contributes to the wastage of national wealth and increase of poverty. People spend money on buying cigarettes and tobacco thus making them poorer and increasing the poverty rate. The cure of the smoking related illnesses also eat up a lot of national wealth, not to mention the loss and deterioration of the all important human resource.

Most of the people of the third world countries do not have access to the boons like . One needs to have a prescription in order to . But a huge section of the population of these countries in question is inaccessible to both the net and the money required to . Therefore, it is clear that the task of protecting the people from this addiction is largely vested with the governments.