[Mortality from tobacco use]

The health consequences of tobacco smoking can be estimated from tobacco consumption data, mortality statistics and estimates of risks observed among populations of smokers in cohort studies. In 1990, 60,000 deaths were attributable to smoking in France, corresponding to more than 10% of all deaths. The effect of smoking is much greater in the male (55,000 deaths) than in the female population (5,000 deaths). It is in the age group 45 to 64 that tobacco has the largest effect, contributing to 28% of all deaths in the male population. The health effects observed in 1990 are the consequences of habits which were adopted 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Because the consumption of cigarettes increased regularly between 1950 and 1976, and remained stable since, one can predict that the number of tobacco related deaths will increase for several more decades. This increase will be largest in the female population, and what is already seen in the USA: more women dying from lung cancer than from breast cancer, will one day be seen in France. Despite anti-smoking activities, there is no marked reduction in tobacco sales, and the decrease in the relative price of cigarettes observed between 1960 and 1980, will not be completely compensated by the increases planned for 1993.