Cigarettes are the most lethal consumer product on the planet. Yet, despite all the health warnings and decades of ever increasing government regulation, the burning desire for tobacco is as strong as ever. Peter Taylor travels to Australia to look at the industry's last-ditch battle to prevent plain packaging and is given rare access to the world's second-biggest tobacco company to see why thousands of young people around the world are seduced by smoking every day.
The tobacco industry is pouring vast amounts of money into developing electronic or e-cigarettes which are claimed to be hugely safer than conventional cigarettes and could save millions of lives. Meanwhile, in the developing world where 80% of smokers live, it is business as usual. Peter Taylor travels to South America and also to East Timor, the country with the highest smoking rate for men in the world, to see whether the cigarette industry can be trusted when it says it does not seduce young people to smoke.
