Tobacco Production and Consumption

　　烟草生产和消耗

　　We meet smokers almost everywhere, in the street, in shops, at the railway station, on the campus and in many other public areas. This explains the astonishing statistic figure of 1.1 billion smokers out of 5. 6 billion people in the world, occupying about 20% of the world's population.

　　The harmful effect that smoking has upon people mainly lies in two aspects : money loss and health deterioration. In the figure, we can see that the annual consumption of tobacco amounts to 200 billion dollars, which, if spent on public welfare, can benefit a great many poor people.

　　It is known to all that smoking does a lot of harm, not only to smokers themselves, but also to people around who are actually unconscious victims. According to the statistics obtained, approximately 3 million people die of lung cancer and other fatal diseases every year.

　　Fortunately, nowadays more and more people have become aware of the harmful effect of smoking. Tobacco consumption is decreasing. Tobacco production is decreasing (has dropped to 14.2 billion pounds in 1995 as against 14.364 billion pounds in 1994). The number of smokers is decreasing. Finally, we believe in the advance of society, we believe in a new world without smoking, we believe in people.

　　作文结构分析：

　　·Pictur e 2———吸烟者到处可见

　　烟民占世界人口……

　　·Pictur e 3———吸烟既费钱又损健康

　　每年烟草耗去……

　　·Pictur e 4———吸烟导致疾病的死亡

　　·Pictur e 1———意识到吸烟危害导致烟草生产下降，消耗下降，烟民人数下降

　　作文内容分析：

　　本文是一篇图画图表作文, 要求说明并解释每一张小图, 最后指出烟草生产和消耗的趋势。本文的写作要用到多种文体。写作前必须仔细看图, 作出分析才能写得层次分明, 覆盖四幅小图。本题曾是一道考研写作题, 作者借题发挥, 撰文供学习。

　　单词词组：

　　public areas 公共场所

　　astonishing statistic figure 惊人的统计数字

　　occupy v. 占

　　have an effect on 对……有影响

　　lie in 在于

　　money loss and health deterioration 又费钱又损健康

　　consumption n. 消耗

　　tobacco n. 烟草

　　amount to 达

　　public welfare 公共福利

　　unconscious victims 不知不觉的受害者，被动吸烟者

　　lung cancer 肺癌

　　fatal disease 致命疾病