A World Health Organisation report predicts that tobacco use could kill more than one billion people worldwide this century unless action is taken to reverse the epidemic.
The UN body says 80% of such deaths would occur in the developing world.
WHO tobacco-free initiative director, Dr Douglas Bettcher, said while the incidence of smoking was declining in industrialised countries it was growing in less well-off nations.
The report said that 100m deaths were caused by tobacco in the 20th century and if that trend continued then the death toll this century would hit one billion.
The study, which provides key data on tobacco use and control for countries representing more than 99% of the world's population, recommends a six-pronged approach to combat the scourge.
The strategies involve monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies, protecting people from tobacco smoke, offering help to quit tobacco use, warning about the dangers of tobacco, enforcing bans on tobacco advertising and promotion and raising taxes on tobacco.
'While efforts to combat tobacco are gaining momentum, virtually all countries need to do more,' WHO Director General Margaret Chan said.
The report noted that tobacco use is growing fastest in low-income countries, owing to steady population growth coupled with targeting by the tobacco industry - the end result being that millions of people become addicted each year.
Smoker countries
It said that nearly 66% of the world's smokers live in 10 countries: China (accounting for nearly 30%), India (10%), Indonesia, Russia, the US, Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany and Turkey.
It noted that only 5% of the world's population is protected by comprehensive national smoke-free legislation, while half of the countries, two out of three in the developing world, did not even have minimal data on tobacco use.
The report made clear that tobacco use currently costs the world hundreds of billions of dollars each year. In the US alone, the economic losses are estimated at $92bn a year.
The tobacco industry meanwhile spends tens of billions of dollars on marketing and targets the developing world with the same marketing and lobbying tactics perfected and now banned in rich countries, the report said.
These include enticing women and teens to use tobacco and pressuring governments to block marketing restrictions and tax hikes.
It singled out higher taxes on tobacco as 'the most effective way to decrease consumption and encourage tobacco users to quit.'
