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China's struggle to keep its young from smoking (2)

(Xinhua)    10:09, May 29, 2014
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A NATION OF SMOKERS

As the world's largest cigarette producer and consumer, China has 300 million smokers, with at least 740 million nonsmokers regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, including 180 million children.

In an environment with such a solid smoking culture, children tend to become smokers subconsciously.

More than half of the students surveyed said that they had seen people smoking in schools in the past month, while 13.3 percent said they see teachers smoking everyday at school, though they are not allowed to do so.

Moreover, 60 percent of the surveyed responded that at least one of their parents smoke and 70 percent have watched scenes involving smoking in films and TV dramas in the past month.

It is highly likely that children will become smokers if their parents smoke, according to the CCDCP researcher Xiao Lin. If kids' TV idols smoke, their acceptance to smoking will be 16 times higher, Xiao said.

In China, cigarette advertising is banned on TV, but still a large number of the students surveyed saw cigarette ads outdoors or on the Internet.

"Parents, teachers and idols are all smoking, which lets the children feel that smoking is not a bad thing. That's seriously misleading," added Xiao.

According to the report, 13 percent of the respondents think that smoking makes young people more attractive. Nearly 7 percent said they would probably smoke a cigarette in the next 12 months.

SMOKING BAN DILEMMA

In China, about 1.4 million people die of cigarette-related diseases every year, and that number is predicted to reach three million by 2050 if no sound measures are adopted to control Chinese people's puffing on nicotine.

In 2003, China signed the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. But it has been criticized for failing to fulfill the promise of reducing use of tobacco, a backup for the nation's fast-inflating economy.

China's tobacco industry generated a huge 956 billion yuan (154.9 billion U.S. dollars) in taxes and profits in 2013, up 10.5 percent year on year.

Dr Bernhard Schwartlander, WHO representative in China, has advised China to raise taxes on tobacco products.

"Policy makers should substantially increase taxes on tobacco, while ensuring that the increase is passed on to the retail price of tobacco products," he said, adding it is the single most effective measure authorities can take to reduce death, disease, and future economic harm caused by tobacco.

In fact, the Chinese government is making increasing efforts to reinforce anti-tobacco publicity and curb rampant tobacco use nationwide.

It has made a public smoking ban one of its goals for the 2011-2015 period. Some cities have already enacted legislation on smoking in public places.

Since the end of last year, officials have not been allowed to smoke in public areas, including schools, hospitals, sports venues and on public transport. A rule meted out by the Ministry of Education earlier this year also ordered a thorough ban of smoking within primary and middle schools, kindergartens and secondary vocational schools.

CCDCP deputy head Liang Xiaofeng suggested that the government can also do more to help the young give up smoking, such as nurturing more professionals or medical workers specializing in smoking-cessation.

According to the report, 72.1 percent of the student smokers want to quit, but only 11.4 percent of them had ever got help from professionals.

"It may take a long time, considering that many schools do not even have a school doctor," said Liang.


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(Editor:Wang Xin、Yan Meng)

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