Number of smokers has reached all-time high of 1.1 billion, study finds

Governments told to focus on stopping young from taking up habit that killed 8 million people in 2019

Smoking killed almost 8 million people in 2019 and the number of smokers rose as the habit was picked up by young people around the world, according to new research.

A study published in the Lancet on Thursday said efforts to curb the habit had been outstripped by population growth with 150 million more people smoking in the nine years from 1990, reaching an all-time high of 1.1 billion.