When someone shares with you something of value, you have an obligation to share it with others.
Monday 8 June 2009
No Tobacco Day finds little support on the smoky mainland
More than 60 per cent of Chinese males aged 15 and older are habitual smokers, and 540 million people nationwide are affected by second-hand smoke, according to the Worker’s Daily.
No Tobacco Day finds little support on the smoky mainland
Woods Lee 1 June 2009
Deng Baozhu, who runs a newspaper stand at the Capital Business and Economics University in Beijing, said it was business as usual despite World No Tobacco Day.
“Smoking is very popular among students here, and selling cigarettes is also one of my major income sources apart from the newspapers and magazines,” said Ms. Deng, 28, admitting she didn’t know the event existed, which the World Health Organisation initiated in 1988.
Her response would disappoint the Beijing Patriotic Health Committee, a quasi-government organisation that, together with authorities of almost all the mainland’s major cities, launched a “one hour free of smoking campaign”.
The committee also called on cigarette vendors in the city to refrain from selling cigarettes for a day or at least one hour as a contribution to the kick-the-habit campaign.
The mainland started to ban smoking in public places in the 1990s. Last year, the Beijing municipal government applied even stricter in the city to discourage smoking in the lead-up to the Olympics.
But the overall effectiveness of the government’s anti-smoking policy is far from encouraging, and authorities still find the task a grim one, with no sign of a decrease on the horizon.
There are 350 million smokers on the mainland, a third of the world’s total. About 1 million people die of smoking-related diseases each year, according to the state media.
More than 60 per cent of Chinese males aged 15 and older are habitual smokers, and 540 million people nationwide are affected by second-hand smoke, according to the Worker’s Daily.
Currently, the average age when Chinese men become habitual smokers has risen to 18, and 20 for women, compared with 22 and 25, respectively, about 20 years ago.
Citing one study by the Ministry of Health, the newspaper said 46 per cent of all university students smoked, with high school students 45 per cent, and junior middle school students 34 per cent.
It appears to be a futile task to control smoking even among doctors in hospitals.
A report released yesterday by the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said about half of all Chinese doctors did not know of the increased likelihood of heart disease from passive smoking.
The centre called on the government to force cigarette producers to print “strikingly alarming pictures” to remind people of the damage smoking does to their health.
Colourful and attractive packaging of the cigarettes is blamed as one key factor luring people, especially youth, to take up the habit.
The government introduced tougher demands for cigarette packaging - the mainland produces about 100 billion of them a year - back in January, but the measures were widely criticised as not going far enough.
WHO assistant director-general Ala Alwan said warnings work “only if they communicate the risk. Warnings that include images of the harm that tobacco causes are particularly effective at communicating risk and motivating behavioural changes, such as quitting or reducing tobacco consumption”.
1 comment:
No Tobacco Day finds little support on the smoky mainland
Woods Lee
1 June 2009
Deng Baozhu, who runs a newspaper stand at the Capital Business and Economics University in Beijing, said it was business as usual despite World No Tobacco Day.
“Smoking is very popular among students here, and selling cigarettes is also one of my major income sources apart from the newspapers and magazines,” said Ms. Deng, 28, admitting she didn’t know the event existed, which the World Health Organisation initiated in 1988.
Her response would disappoint the Beijing Patriotic Health Committee, a quasi-government organisation that, together with authorities of almost all the mainland’s major cities, launched a “one hour free of smoking campaign”.
The committee also called on cigarette vendors in the city to refrain from selling cigarettes for a day or at least one hour as a contribution to the kick-the-habit campaign.
The mainland started to ban smoking in public places in the 1990s. Last year, the Beijing municipal government applied even stricter in the city to discourage smoking in the lead-up to the Olympics.
But the overall effectiveness of the government’s anti-smoking policy is far from encouraging, and authorities still find the task a grim one, with no sign of a decrease on the horizon.
There are 350 million smokers on the mainland, a third of the world’s total. About 1 million people die of smoking-related diseases each year, according to the state media.
More than 60 per cent of Chinese males aged 15 and older are habitual smokers, and 540 million people nationwide are affected by second-hand smoke, according to the Worker’s Daily.
Currently, the average age when Chinese men become habitual smokers has risen to 18, and 20 for women, compared with 22 and 25, respectively, about 20 years ago.
Citing one study by the Ministry of Health, the newspaper said 46 per cent of all university students smoked, with high school students 45 per cent, and junior middle school students 34 per cent.
It appears to be a futile task to control smoking even among doctors in hospitals.
A report released yesterday by the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said about half of all Chinese doctors did not know of the increased likelihood of heart disease from passive smoking.
The centre called on the government to force cigarette producers to print “strikingly alarming pictures” to remind people of the damage smoking does to their health.
Colourful and attractive packaging of the cigarettes is blamed as one key factor luring people, especially youth, to take up the habit.
The government introduced tougher demands for cigarette packaging - the mainland produces about 100 billion of them a year - back in January, but the measures were widely criticised as not going far enough.
WHO assistant director-general Ala Alwan said warnings work “only if they communicate the risk. Warnings that include images of the harm that tobacco causes are particularly effective at communicating risk and motivating behavioural changes, such as quitting or reducing tobacco consumption”.
Post a Comment