Smoking is bad. Very bad. It’s as strongly correlated with lung cancer and other complications as eating too much junk food is with weight gain. In the last 30 or so years, heavy legislative restrictions and robust public advocacy have dramatically reduced the rate of smoking, particularly in the U.S. That’s the rate, or the percentage of the population that smokes. Across the globe, the smoking rate dropped from 26% in 1980 to 18.7% in 2012. That’s good news. The bad news? Worldwide, there are now more smokers than ever, according to the University of Washington.

Over the course of the study, the number of adults who smoke increased from 721 million to nearly 1 billion, reports the study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The number of individual cigarettes smoked globally jumped from about 5 trillion to 6.25 trillion. Part of the problem, despite 50 years of tobacco control here in the U.S., is population growth. The other part? The unflappable success of marketing efforts by tobacco companies.

The dropping rate is a good sign, as it indicates an overall trend, and confirms that for the most part, anti-smoking campaigns and education are successful. But the increasing total number is still a major global public health concern. Considering that practically all of the growth in smoking is occurring in developing countries (where healthcare practices tend to be less advances), the implications could be significant.

“It’s premature deaths … and the total global burden of suffering — of preventable suffering — that we’re talking about here,” said Ruth Malone, who studies global tobacco issues at the University of California, San Francisco.

As reported earlier, anti-smoking efforts over the last 50 years here in the U.S. have saved an estimated eight million lives, and reduced the the smoking rate by more than half, from 42% to 18% in 2012. The actual number of domestic smokers has fallen as well, down from 52 million in 1980 to 38 million in 2012, despite population growth.

Despite the gains in the U.S., lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths among both men and women. The World Health Organization estimates tobacco-related illness kills more people worldwide than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

“The University of Washington study demonstrated clearly how much further the world, particularly low- and middle-income countries, still has to go,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Though the situation isn’t hopeless, it remains to be seen if the total smoking population will continue to rise and more and more countries adopt anti-smoking measures.

For a nifty graphical depiction of the study’s results, click here for an image courtesy of the Seattle Times and UW.