Russia’s Smoking Problem
On a per capita basis, Russia trails only neighboring Belarus in cigarette consumption.
May 24, 2018
1. Russia’s population (143 million) is the world’s ninth-largest. On average, every Russian smoker consumes 2,690 cigarettes each year.
2. On a per capita basis, Russia trails only neighboring Belarus in cigarette consumption, according to the American Cancer Society.
3. In absolute terms, Russia’s cigarette consumption ranks behind only the much more populous China.
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4. Russia’s 33 million smokers, as of 2015, consume 321.4 billion cigarettes annually.
5. That is 14% more than that of the United States’s 38 million smokers, who consume 281.3 billion.
6. First-ranked China’s 270 million smokers consume 2.6 trillion cigarettes.
7. On a per capita basis, each smoker in China consumes 2,250 cigarettes on average.
8. Meanwhile each smoker in the United States consumes less than half that number — just 1,083 annually (or three per day).
9. Russia also has the fourth-highest rate of alcohol consumption per person, according to the World Health Organization – behind only Belarus, Moldova and Lithuania, all former Soviet Republics.
Sources: Tobacco Atlas (American Cancer Society), University of Washington, World Health Organization, The Globalist Research Center