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The American Lung Association reports that smoking-related illnesses kill a little fewer than 400,000 Americans per year. In 2004, smoking costs the United States roughly $193 billion due to lost in productivity, health care costs and expenditures. Due to the fact that smoking is extremely detrimental to one's health, several campaigns and initiatives have been created over the years to encourage people to quit or avoid starting the habit. In a new study, researchers reported that tripling the tax on tobacco could save 200 million people from dying prematurely.

"Death and taxes are inevitable, but they don't need to be in that order," Dr. Prabhat Jha said in the news release. "A higher tax on tobacco is the single most effective intervention to lower smoking rates and to deter future smokers."

"Worldwide, around a half-billion children and adults under the age of 35 are already -- or soon will be -- smokers and on current patterns few will quit," added study co-author Sir Richard Peto, a professor at the University of Oxford.

Iha, who is a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, stated that if taxes increased particularly in poorer countries, more lives could be saved. Currently, in poorer nations, cigarettes and tobacco are relatively cheap and very accessible. By putting a global tax on cigarettes, it could discourage people from smoking. The researchers specifically stated that an increase in the tobacco tax would also help lower the number of deaths due to lung cancer and other illness.

"So there's an urgent need for governments to find ways to stop people starting and to help smokers give up," Peto said reported by HealthDay. "All governments can take action by regularly raising tobacco taxes above inflation, and using occasional steep tax hikes starting with their next budget. Young adult smokers will lose about a decade of life if they continue to smoke -- they've so much to gain by stopping."

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.