This paper focuses on the first century of the global tobacco epidemic and its current status, reviewing the
current and projected future of the global tobacco epidemic and the steps that are in progress to end it. In the
United States and many countries of western Europe, tobacco consumption peaked during the 1960s and
1970s and declined as tobacco control programs were initiated, motivated by the evidence indicting smoking
as a leading cause of disease. Despite this policy advancement and the subsequent reductions in tobacco
consumption, the global tobacco epidemic continued to grow in the later years of the twentieth century, as the
multinational companies sought new markets to replace those shrinking in high-income countries. In
response, the World Health Organization developed between 2000 and 2004 its first public health treaty, the
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which entered into force in 2005. An accompanying
package of interventions has been implemented. New approaches to tobacco control, including plain
packaging and single representation of brands, have been implemented by Australia and Uruguay, respectively,
but have been challenged by the tobacco industry.