World No Tobacco Day 2004 highlights how tobacco consumption impoverishes individuals, households and countries, diverting resources away from basic necessities and causing disease and premature death.
Tobacco is bad economics all around; it has very high opportunity costs, particularly for the poor, and is inextricably linked with poverty.
Money spent on tobacco is money not spent on basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, education and health care.
In low-income households, this may mean the difference between an adequate diet and malnutrition, and between education and illiteracy.
In some countries of the Region, over 10% of scarce resources in low-income households are spent on cigarettes or other tobacco products; in others, the average amount spent by poor households on tobacco is virtually the same as the amount spent on education.
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