China's film and teleplay directors were urged to cut smoking
scenes in their works amid fear that too much exposure of smoking
would undermine the country's tobacco control efforts.
"Bad guys smoke. Good guys smoke too. In sadness, they smoke. In
happiness, they smoke too. When in trouble, they smoke. But when
the trouble is fixed, they are still smoking," said political
advisor Fang Jiqian.
Fang made the remarks at a group discussion on the sidelines of
an annual session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC), the highest advisory body of the country, and
won support from his fellow advisors.
"Nearly 63 percent of the popular home-made teleplays shown in
2004 and 2005 have smoking scenes, each teleplay having 30 smoking
scenes on average," Fang said.
"Too much smoking scenes have an adverse impact on the audience,
especially youths," he added.
Fang, a professor on public health with Sun Yat-sen University,
urged the authorities to take actions to restrict the smoking
scenes in movies and teleplays to create a better environment for
the health and growth of young people.
He also blamed government departments concerned for the failure
to put tobacco and tobacco commercials under strict control.
"The government should completely ban all commercial promotions
of tobacco products and expand tobacco ban to more public places to
better protect non-smokers," Fang said.
The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration estimates that China
has more than 350 million smokers, about 26 percent of the
country's total population and a third of the world's smoking
population. Each year, about 1 million Chinese die of
smoking-related diseases.
Fang said tobacco control is a solemn commitment made by the
Chinese government and "it concerns the image of the
government".
He criticized insufficient government actions, saying that weak
official efforts have led to the rise of both tobacco needs and
supply in recent years.
However, Fang seemed to get the cold shoulder from the State
Tobacco Monopoly Administration.
"We're fully aware that smoking harms people's health. But we
also fear that completely banning smoking would affect social
stability," said Zhang Baozhen, deputy chief of the administration
at the group discussion.
Zhang did not elaborate how a complete ban of smoking would
bring harm to social stability, and said tobacco control is a
"long-term task".
"As a member of the World Health Organization Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control, China will improve its efforts in
tobacco control," Zhang said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2007)