Smoking is one of the most common forms of recreational substance use. It is a prevalent habit among humans all over the world especially youths. In private places as well as in social gatherings, it is common to fnd smokers among the population; this makes tobacco the most common substance that is smoked worldwide (Proctar, 1996). Tobacco is the most important preventable cause of premature death in many countries, and half of persistent smokers who start smoking in adolescence will die from the use of tobacco (Adekunle et al., 2011).
The health risks of tobacco are vastly underestimated because of the 30-40 year time lag between the onset of smoking and the peak in the deaths that it causes (Proctar &Robert, 2006). Thus, in the developing world, tobacco poses a major challenge, not just to health, but also to social and economic development, and to environmental sustainability.
Data from studies on the harmful consequences of smoking on health have confirmed the quantitative relationship between smoking and many diseases such as coronary artery disease, lung cancer, bladder cancer, pulmonary emphysema, peripheral vascular disease and neonatal mortality (Dhala et al., 2004; Khan et al., 2005). Similarly, geographical variation in the prevalence of cigarette smoking contributes to differences in the mortality patterns of smoking related diseases such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease and coronary heart diseases (Giovino et al., 2004). Globally during the past two decades, cigarette production has increased at an average of 2.2% each year, outpacing the population growth rate of 1.7% (Crofton & Simpson, 2002). Consequently, the World Health Organization (WHO), at the forty-second World Health Assembly, recognized that worldwide the use of tobacco is responsible for two million premature deaths annually (WHO, 1998), and in 2000, an estimated 4.83 million premature deaths were attributable to smoking, of which almost 50% were in developing countries (Ezzati & Lopez, 2003).
