GENEVA (Reuters) - Smoking costs the global economy more than $1 trillion a year, and will kill one third more people by 2030 than it does now, according to a study by the World Health Organization and the U.S. National Cancer Institute published on Tuesday. 
 
 That cost far outweighs global revenues from tobacco taxes, which the WHO estimated at about $269 billion in 2013-2014. 
 
 “The number of tobacco-related deaths is projected to increase from about 6 million deaths annually to about 8 million annually by 2030, with more than 80 percent of these occurring in LMICs (low- and middle-income countries),” the study said. 
 
 Around 80 percent of smokers live in such countries, and although smoking prevalence was falling among the global population, the total number of smokers worldwide is rising, it said. 
 
 Health experts say tobacco use is the single biggest preventable cause of death globally. 
 
 “It is responsible for... likely over $1 trillion in health care costs and lost productivity each year,” said the study, peer-reviewed by more than 70 scientific experts. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: An ash tray with cigarette butts is pictured in Hinzenbach, Austria, February 5, 2012. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo 
 
 The economic costs are expected to continue to rise, and although governments have the tools to reduce tobacco use and associated deaths, most have fallen far short of using those tools effectively, said the 688-page report. 
 
 “Government fears that tobacco control will have an adverse economic impact are not justified by the evidence. The science is clear; the time for action is now.” 
 
 HOW TO QUIT 
 
 Cheap and effective policies included hiking tobacco taxes and prices, comprehensive smoke-free policies, complete bans on tobacco company marketing, and prominent pictorial warning labels. 
 
 Tobacco taxes could also be used to fund more expensive interventions such as anti-tobacco mass media campaigns and support for cessation services and treatments, it said. 
 
 Governments spent less than $1 billion on tobacco control in 2013-2014, according to a WHO estimate. 
 
 Tobacco regulation meanwhile is reaching a crunch point because of a trade dispute brought by Cuba, Indonesia, Honduras and Dominican Republic against Australia’s stringent “plain packaging” laws, which enforce standardized designs on tobacco products and ban distinctive logos and colorful branding. 
 
 The World Trade Organization is expected to rule on the complaint this year. Australia’s policy is being closely watched by other countries that are considering similar policies, including Norway, Slovenia, Canada, Singapore, Belgium and South Africa, the study said. ||||| CANBERRA Australia called on the world to match its tough new anti-tobacco marketing laws that will ban logos on cigarette packs, after its highest court on Wednesday dismissed a challenge from global manufacturers. 
 
 The decision means that from December 1, cigarettes and tobacco products must be sold in plain olive green packets with graphic health warnings, such as pictures of mouth cancer and other smoking-related illnesses. 
 
 Although the impact of Australia on their global business is small, the law could have a major effect if it is adopted as a precedent in other countries, especially the fast-growing economies that cigarette firms see as markets of the future. 
 
 The laws are in line with World Health Organisation recommendations and are being watched closely by countries including Britain, Norway, New Zealand, Canada and India, which are considering similar measures to help fight smoking. 
 
 British American Tobacco, Britain's Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco challenged the laws in Australia's High Court, claiming the rules were unconstitutional because they effectively extinguished their intellectual property rights. 
 
 In a brief statement, the High Court said a majority of its seven judges believed the laws did not breach Australia's constitution. A full judgment will be released later. 
 
 The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 1 billion people around the world are regular smokers, with 80 percent in low- and middle-income countries. 
 
 Shares in tobacco groups dipped lower with Philip Morris down 0.5 percent in New York and BAT off 1.9 percent and Imperial Tobacco down 1.7 in London. 
 
 Supporters of the measure hailed the legal victory as an important step for public health in Australia and any other countries that may copy it. 
 
 Australian Attorney-General Nicola Roxon hailed the ruling as "a watershed moment for tobacco control around the world". 
 
 "The message to the rest of the world is big tobacco can be taken on and beaten," said Roxon, whose father, a smoker, died of cancer when she was 10. 
 
 "Without brave governments willing to take the fight up to big tobacco, they'd still have us believing that tobacco is neither harmful nor addictive," she said after the ruling. 
 
 According to the global Tobacco Atlas, a report on smoking produced by the World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society, 17 percent of male deaths and 14 percent of female deaths in Australia are due to tobacco. 
 
 "We hope other nations follow Australia's lead and eliminate the use of tobacco packaging as a marketing tool, to help reduce the global tobacco death toll -- which is on track to reach half a billion people this century," said Australia's Cancer Council Chief Executive Ian Olver. 
 
 FIRST OF MANY BLOODY NOSES? 
 
 Countries with legal systems similar to Australia's may be among the first to try to copy the packaging logo ban. 
 
 New Zealand's Associate Health Minister Tariana Turia said the decision gave New Zealand more confidence to push ahead with similar measures. In Britain, which is also considering such steps, anti-smoking and health campaigners welcomed the ruling. 
 
 "This is a major victory not just for Australia but for the world and the first of many bloody noses for the tobacco industry on plain packaging. It should encourage the British government to go ahead with legislation," said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of anti-smoking lobby group Action on Smoking and Health. 
 
 Britain finished a four-month consultation process on plain packaging last week and will now analyze the thousands of responses it has received. It is expected to make a decision on whether to push ahead with legislation later this year. 
 
 The Department of Health said no decision had been taken, although Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has been quoted as saying "we no longer see smoking as part of life" and that he wanted tobacco companies to have "no business in the UK". 
 
 Canada, meanwhile, has just implemented graphic warning rules and is watching developments in Australia. 
 
 "At this time, the Department is not planning any regulatory action to require plain packaging for tobacco packages. Health Canada continues to review available research on plain packaging as a form of tobacco control and closely monitors plain packaging proposals put forward in other countries, such as Australia," Olivia Caron, a spokeswoman for Health Canada, said. 
 
 A spread of plain-package laws to emerging markets, such as Brazil, Russia or Indonesia, could threaten cigarette firms' sales growth. 
 
 In Indonesia, the government said it would like to follow Australia's example. "That's excellent ... this is one way to protect the people," Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi told Reuters. 
 
 However, anti-tobacco campaigner Tulus Abadi, head of the national commission on tobacco control, said there had been little movement from the government on a draft law to include graphic warnings on cigarette packets like those in Australia. 
 
 Russia's Rospotrebnadzor, the state consumer protection agency, was not available for comment on Wednesday. 
 
 But plain-package laws are not likely to come to that country anytime soon, one Russian anti-tobacco analyst said. 
 
 "For now, we (Russia) would not be able to get rid of companies' logos from cigarette packages," said Dmitry Yanin, a Russian anti-tobacco activist and head of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies. "But we do hope the ruling will help us implement a law that calls for introduction of graphic images of the effects of smoking on cigarette packages." 
 
 CHALLENGES 
 
 Tobacco firms say plain packaging laws violate their intellectual property rights and will stimulate a black market in fake or illegally imported cigarettes. 
 
 "It's still a bad law that will only benefit organized crime groups, which sell illegal tobacco on our streets," British American Tobacco Australia spokesman Scott McIntyre said after the decision. However, he said the firm would comply. 
 
 Firms can also use free trade arguments against plain packaging laws. Australia is already fighting trade complaints in the World Trade Organization (WTO) from Ukraine, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, which claim the laws unfairly restrict trade, although their trade with Australia is negligible. 
 
 Philip Morris said it would launch a legal challenge against the laws under a bilateral Australia-Hong Kong investment agreement. 
 
 "There is still a long way to go before all the legal questions about plain packaging are fully explored and answered," Philip Morris spokesman Chris Argent said in a statement. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Gyles Beckford in WELLINGTON, Olivia Rondonuwu in JAKARTA,; Kate Kelland David Jones in LONDON; Ece Toksabay in ISTANBUL; Lidia Kelly in MOSCOW; Louise Egan in OTTAWA; and Brad Dorfman in CHICAGO; Writing by Paul Tait and David Jones; Editing by Peter Graff and Marguerita Choy) ||||| A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a decision barring the federal government from requiring tobacco companies to put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages to show that smoking can disfigure and even kill people. 
 
 In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington affirmed a lower court ruling that the requirement ran afoul of the First Amendment's free speech protections. The appeals court tossed out the requirement and told the Food and Drug Administration to go back to the drawing board. 
 
 Some of the nation's largest tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., sued to block the mandate to include warnings to show the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit lighting up. They argued that the proposed warnings went beyond factual information into anti-smoking advocacy. The government argued the photos of dead and diseased smokers are factual in conveying the dangers of tobacco, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths in the U.S. a year. 
 
 The nine graphic warnings proposed by the FDA include color images of a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat, and a plume of cigarette smoke enveloping an infant receiving a mother's kiss. These are accompanied by language that says smoking causes cancer and can harm fetuses. The warnings were to cover the entire top half of cigarette packs, front and back, and include the phone number for a stop-smoking hotline, 1-800-QUIT-NOW. 
 
 In the majority opinion, the appeals court wrote that the case raises "novel questions about the scope of the government's authority to force the manufacturer of a product to go beyond making purely factual and accurate commercial disclosures and undermine its own economic interest _ in this case, by making `every single pack of cigarettes in the country (a) mini billboard' for the government's anti-smoking message." 
 
 The court also wrote that the FDA "has not provided a shred of evidence" showing that the warnings will "directly advance" its interest in reducing the number of Americans who smoke. 
 
 Tobacco companies increasingly rely on their packaging to build brand loyalty and grab consumers _ one of the few advertising levers left to them after the government curbed their presence in magazines, billboards and TV. 
 
 "It's a significant vindication of First Amendment principles," said Floyd Abrams, an attorney representing Lorillard Tobacco. "There's never been any doubt that the government could require warnings on products that can have dangerous results. And what the court is saying is that there are real limits on the ability of the government to require the manufacturer of a lawful product to denounce the product in the course of trying to sell it." 
 
 The FDA declined to comment on pending litigation and the Justice Department said it would review the appeals court ruling. Public health groups are urging the government to appeal. 
 
 "While the tobacco industry has grown increasingly aggressive in preying upon the American public with misleading and fraudulent marketing practices over several decades, the warning labels have not been changed in 25 years," said John R. Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society. "Existing warnings have failed to inform the public adequately of the risks of tobacco use. ... We hope the government can identify ways that the FDA can move forward with the new cigarette warning labels." 
 
 Warning labels first appeared on U.S. cigarette packs in 1965, and current warning labels that feature a small box with text were put on cigarette packs in the mid-1980s. Changes to more graphic warning labels that feature color images of the negative effects of tobacco use were mandated in a law passed in 2009 that, for the first time, gave the federal government authority to regulate tobacco. 
 
 The share of Americans who smoke has fallen dramatically since 1970, from nearly 40 percent to about 20 percent. But the rate has stalled since about 2004, with about 46 million adults in the U.S. smoking cigarettes. It's unclear why it hasn't budged, but some experts have cited tobacco company discount coupons on cigarettes and lack of funding for programs to discourage smoking or to help smokers quit. 
 
 In recent years, more than 40 countries or jurisdictions have introduced labels similar to those created by the FDA. The World Health Organization said in a survey done in countries with graphic labels that a majority of smokers noticed the warnings and more than 25 percent said the warnings led them to consider quitting. 
 
 Joining North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds, owned by Reynolds American Inc., and Lorillard Tobacco, owned by Lorillard Inc., in the lawsuit are Commonwealth Brands Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc. 
 
 Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group Inc., parent company of the nation's largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, which makes the top-selling Marlboro brand, is not a part of the lawsuit. 
 
 The case is separate from a lawsuit by several of the same tobacco companies over the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which cleared the way for the more graphic warning labels and other marketing restrictions. The law also allowed the FDA to limit nicotine and banned tobacco companies from sponsoring athletic or social events or giving away free samples or branded merchandise. 
 
 In March, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that the law was constitutional. The contradicting decisions mean the case could be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal. 
 
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 Michael Felberbaum can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MLFelberbaum.
– Smoking costs the global economy an eye-popping $1 trillion a year, and despite anti-tobacco efforts, deaths are rising, Reuters reports. Tobacco-related illnesses will claim 8 million lives per year by 2030, up from the current 6 million, warns a new study by the World Health Organization and the National Cancer Institute. There are more people lighting up in middle- to low-income countries, which is where 80% of projected smoking deaths will occur in the coming years. Lost productivity and health care costs top $1 trillion per year (that's 12 zeros), a figure that dwarfs that $1 billion governments spent on anti-tobacco measures in the 2013-14 year. Governments could do more to curb smoking and reduce their health-care costs, the authors say. Smoking is the single largest preventable cause of death, notes Reuters. Global efforts to curb tobacco use have fallen short, the study says. "Government fears that tobacco control will have an adverse economic impact are not justified by the evidence," the authors write. "The science is clear; the time for action is now." They suggest boosting tobacco taxes and the price per pack along with better anti-smoking policies, warning labels and a total ban on marketing tobacco. Australia's strict plain-packaging laws banning cigarette company logos have been praised by health experts as a model for other nations, though the policy has sparked legal challenges. Australia won a legal fight against Philip Morris in 2015 to keep cigarette packs there as drab as possible, per the Guardian. (Smoke just a little bit? It'll still kill you.)