Smoking is bad for the nation's health.
The plain truth, corroborated by ever-increasing medical
evidence, reiterated by health authorities, and printed on
cigarette packages, has failed to prevent our innocent youth from
smoking.
Many young smokers light up their first cigarette in the
mistaken belief that puffing away at a cigarette is cool.
Anti-smoking advocates here in China must envy their
counterparts in France. To help implement a nationwide smoking ban
coming into force there on Thursday, 175,000 special inspectors and
members of the police force will be dispatched to patrol public
venues.
In spite of doubts over the long-term success of the
high-pitched French campaign, we admire the French authorities'
resolve and sincerely wish their Chinese peers could someday soon,
if not today, take off their kid gloves in dealing with
smoking.
When people foolishly believe smoking is cool, it is of little
use telling them to stop. What the French did, just like what has
been done in our Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, is a
good way to drive home the message that smoking kills.
When smokers risk a fine for lighting a cigarette in public,
smoking is no loner cool.
The forceful bans in both Hong Kong and France actually make
smoking in public indecent.
We cannot expect the same to happen here anytime soon. Not until
our country weans itself from the exorbitant profits from
tobacco.
It is a humiliating paradox that while the central government
pledges commitment to tobacco control, some local governments count
on the health damaging leaves to fill their coffers.
This is a suicidal addiction that must be eradicated. National
policy needs to focus not only on the government-owned tobacco
industry's lucrative profits. It must also deal with the effect of
smoking on the nation's health and the astronomical medical
expanses.
If our government can help opium poppy growers in the Golden
Triangle with alternative crops, they can do the same to help our
tobacco growers find practical alternatives.
This does not appear to be an imperative. But it must be done
since we know beyond any doubt that smoking is a serious public
health hazard.
(China Daily February 5, 2007)