19.1% percent of adults (age 15+) currently use tobacco in any form (men 31.8%; women 5.8%).
12.4% of adults smoke tobacco
7.7% use smokeless tobacco
3% use waterpipes (hookah or shisha)
Among youth (ages 13-15):
10.7% use any tobacco product (boys 13.3%; girls 6.6%)
7.2% smoke tobacco, and 5.3% use smokeless tobacco
Among youth who have ever smoked, nearly 40% first tried a cigarette before age 10
There is no safe level of secondhand smoke.3
72.5% of adults (16.8 million people) who work indoors are exposed to tobacco smoke at the workplace.
86% of adults who visited restaurants in 2014 (49.2 million people) were exposed to secondhand smoke, and 76.2% of adults who used public transport were exposed to secondhand smoke.
37.8% of youth (ages 13-15) are exposed to secondhand smoke in public places, while 21% of youth are exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes.
Tobacco use is deadly. Smoking kills up to half of all lifetime users.4
Tobacco kills over 163,600 people each year in Pakistan. Almost 31,000 of these deaths are due to exposure to secondhand smoke.
Tobacco causes about 16.0% of all male deaths and 4.9% of female deaths. Overall, 10.9% of all deaths are caused by tobacco.
Tobacco causes 66.5% of all deaths from tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer, 53.2% of deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 21.9% of deaths from ischemic heart disease, 15.2% of deaths from diabetes mellitus, and 16.8% of deaths from stroke.
Tobacco exacts a high cost on society.
The economic cost of smoking in Pakistan is Rs 615.07 billion (US$3.85 billion), equal to 1.6% of Pakistan's GDP.
In 2019, the economic cost of smoking was about five times greater than the revenue from the tobacco industry.
Money spent on tobacco reduces households' spending on food, health, education, housing, and household durables.
In Pakistan, tobacco-consuming households spend on average 2.7% of their monthly budget on tobacco.
Poor households spend 3.0% of their budget on tobacco. This is more than they spend on education (1.8%).
International companies hold almost all of the cigarette market in Pakistan. In 2017, British American Tobacco led with 65.6% of the retail volume market share, and Philip Morris International followed with 30%. In Pakistan, 52 billion cigarettes were sold in 2017.
Pakistan ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control on November 3, 2004. The treaty went into effect on February 27, 2005.
