A love of nicotine unites all peoples across the globe, regardless of colour, wealth or creed. Where religion and politics have failed tobacco has succeeded, but at what cost? For over 50 years people have been knowingly paying for the pleasure of tobacco with their lives, making man's fatal tryst with the cigarette one of the strangest love affairs ever.
But as smoking bans in the US and Europe abound, what is happening in poorer nations? Their love affair is still in its first flush - one third of the world's cigarettes are smoked in China alone. And globally the tobacco industry is still worth $430 billion and going strong.
Intrigued by our planet's obsession with the cigarette, we decided to capture our love affair with nicotine across the world on one single day - 20 January 2006.
听MEET: Smokers from across the globe
