Smoking now kills seven million people a year - almost double the number recorded in 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
The startling figures show that tobacco use is now the leading cause of preventable deaths across the world, ahead of obesity.
And experts stress the death toll is only going to keep on rising without tougher laws and regulations on cigarettes in developing countries, where 80 per cent of lives are lost due to smoking.
However, they claim hiking cigarette prices would help to combat the problem, encouraging people to give up the costly addiction.
In a report released today, the UN agency said it is bracing itself for more than one billion tobacco-related deaths by the end of this century.