I saw an article today from Reuters reporting the release of the Tobacco Atlas, a product of the World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society. The article outlines trends in tobacco usage in countries around the world and the cost of tobacco usage in terms of human mortality, medical costs, lost productivity in the workplace, and damage to the environment. I read it and the atlas and just shook my head.

Here is a link to the Reuters story: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57O52L20090825

If you’re interested, you can download all 52MB of the Tobacco Atlas at this address: http://www.tobaccoatlas.org/