China – Living in the Smokes
What can stop an entire country stop smoking for a month? From the recent example in China, it is evident. The Olympics Games
The first smoke-free Olympic Games were in Barcelona in 1992. Obviously, the organisers of Beijing’s Games wanted to keep that tradition.
With 1 in 3 people smoking in China, the middle kingdom is the world’s most enthusiastic smoking nation. It was unthinkable that these smokers will stop smoking just because there was a smoking ban during the Olympics period. However, kudos to the Chinese government, there was no smoking in schools, hospitals or government offices, as well as at all 37 Olympic sites, including indoor and outside stadiums, training facilities and the Olympic village. Hotels, restaurants and bars face a partial ban, with smoking and no-smoking areas required. At least, the key areas in Beijing were smoke free.
The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration reckons 1 in 4 of the country’s 1.3 billion people smoke regularly, including 50 million teenage smokers, of which 15 millions are underage smokers. With one quarter of it’s population light up regularly, the Healthy Ministry’s statistics showed that one million Chinese die of smoking-related illnesses every year. The World Health Organisation reckons that the figure will jump to 2.2 million annually by 2020 if the current smoking rates remain unchanged. Passive smoking also killed 100,000 Chinese annually as the victim fell prey to diseased associated with smoking.
The late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping must be the most famous smoker in China. It was said that he smoked non stop during his meetings with Margaret Thatcher to decide Hong Kong’s fate. If the leaders in China do not stop smoking, have worries that a smoking ban will create chaos, have concerns that the strong cigarette industry will stop contributing tax dollars because of such a ban, we can expect smoke get in our eyes whenever we were in the middle kingdom.
Source: China brings in smoking ban ahead of Olympics
Related posts:
