>>>Just read this: https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2649/thank-you-for-dying/
>
>In many places outside the US there's organized collection of national aggregated data including obesity, diabetes, smoking etc wrt mortality and morbidity. I'll dig some out for you.

Meanwhile, some history. In august of 2014, I wrote to Cecil:

Say, Cecil, in your overwhelming* grasp of all the data in the world, you may be the person to ask about the thing that itches my curiosity.

The connection between lung cancer and smoking. We've had decades of propaganda, first by makers who claimed smoking is good for your health (and had some science to back the claim) and then by the anti-smoking institutions who claimed your chances to win a lung cancer are so much higher if you smoke (and had the equally suspect science to support the claim).

Now that pretty much everyone I know has stopped smoking years ago (sometimes asking for a light gets you left in the dark for long minutes), I guess the statistics should show a gradual decline of the lung cancer. I failed to find any. How could the anti-smoking lobby fail to score on such a strong PR point? Do they know something I don't? I count on your mighty research skills on this, for I have failed.

D. R. Fairday

----
* re whelming, is it ever done right? It's always over or under.

His assistant replied

Cecil gets lots of mail, and only answers one in his weekly column. That's what he's paid for, that's what he does. The good news is that yours(cough, cough) has passed the first screening (mainly, me) and is now in the short list for Cecil to consider. The bad news is that the process can take a long time -- weeks, months, even years. And, alas, getting on the short list is still not a guarantee that he'll ever address it at all. They say patience is a virtue.
Thanks for writing,
CK Dexter Haven
Straight Dope Staff

So it's been three years and then some. Where's that overwhelming statistic?