论文部分内容阅读
China will establish further regulation on smoking control in public places in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), said the Ministry of Health in a circular on May 7.
China signed the convention in 2003 and made it effective as of January 2006, pledging to fulfill its FCTC obligations before January 9, 2011. However, there has been no national legislation to ban smoking in public places.
To further curb tobacco use across the country, the Ministry of Health (MOH) issued an ordinance on May 1, 2011, establishing a ban on smoking in 16 types of public indoor venues, including hospitals, schools, bars, restaurants and hotels.
But the ban has proven to be a failure so far due to lax enforcement, said Suo Chao, a spokesman for the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control (CATC). “The ban has barely had any effect because there are no specific penalties for people who violate the ban,” Suo said.
In the circular, the MOH also proposed establishing a hotline to help those who want to quit smoking.
The proposition is one of a range of smoking control measures included in the MOH circular before the 25th World No Tobacco Day on May 31. It also called for qualified health institutions to set up special smoking cessation outpatient departments.
The circular said that health institutions at all levels should train medical workers in smoking control.
According to WHO, China is the world’s largest tobacco producer, with the most consumers and victims of cigarettes. Statistics show that the country has 320 million smokers, accounting for one third of the world’s smokers, and 740 million people are exposed to second-hand smoke.
About 1.2 million Chinese die from tobacco-related diseases every year, more than the combined number of people who die from AIDS, tuberculosis, traffic accidents and suicide in the country. The figure was expected to exceed 2 million by 2030, Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu said in February.
“With the situation becoming tougher, it will be a long-term task to fight against tobacco in China,” Suo said.
Job still tough
In early March, the China National Tobacco Corp. (CNTC), the country’s cigarette monopoly, disclosed its financial figures for the first time, revealing that its net profit stood at 117.7 billion yuan ($18.60 billion) in 2010.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s tobacco industry paid 752.96 billion yuan ($119.05 billion) in tax in 2011, an annual growth of 22.5 percent, of which 600.1 billion yuan ($94.88 billion) went to the national treasury.
Amid the rapid growth of the tobacco industry, more new smokers are emerging every day in China, especially among the youth and women. The average age that Chinese people start smoking is decreasing, said Huang with the MOH.
A CATC survey of some 40,000 students across China last year showed 15.8 percent of high school students smoked habitually and 22.5 percent said they would consider trying it.
“Smoking has become quite prevalent among students,” Suo said. “Teenagers between 12 and 14 are especially vulnerable. More than 26 percent of them are willing to try smoking.”
It is important to manage the types of influences they are exposed to, Huang said at the launching ceremony of a non-smoking pilot program in schools in Beijing on February 16.
According to the CATC, the reason that more students are starting to smoke is the lack of a smoke-free environment and the lax en- forcement of existing bans.
The survey shows that the majority of teenage smokers buy cigarettes themselves and about 76 percent of adolescent smokers said that there is at least one cigarette shop within 200 meters from their school.
“The earlier people pick up smoking, the less likely they are to quit smoking in the future, and minors, who have a poor sense of self-control, are more likely to be tempted by cigarettes than adults,” Huang said.
Also, Duan Jiali, Secretary General of the Youth Tobacco Control Commission under the CATC, said that teachers and parents should set a good example for teenagers by not smoking in front of them at school or at home, which is the most influential way of stopping adolescents from smoking.
“When teenagers see adults around them smoke, they might do it too,” said Liu Changming, Headmaster of the Beijing No.4 High School. “It’s important to provide them with a smoke-free environment in school through awareness campaigns or regulations.”
Meanwhile, Huang warned that greedy tobacco merchants have also begun to fix their sights on women.
The number of female smokers aged between 15 and 24 is on the rise, said the 2010 China Tobacco Control Report published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The situation is especially serious in large cities such as Shanghai, where statistics from 2002 to 2009 show the smoking rate among women aged 20 to 39 increased from less than 2 percent to over 7 percent while the national average was about 3 percent, according to a study by the School of Public Health at the Shanghai-based Fudan University.
The study focused on 2,000 residents in Shanghai and revealed that while the number of men smoking remained stable over the years, the number of female smokers tripled in the same period.
According to the 2010 China Tobacco Control Report, China’s domestic tobacco companies imitated their overseas peers with marketing strategies aimed at women.
Zheng Pinpin, an associate professor at Fudan University in Shanghai who led the study, said, “When the traditional market of men-oriented cigarettes was saturated and even began to decline, tobacco companies made greater efforts to entice women to smoke.”
Curbing the ‘sickness’
According to Wu Yiqun, an anti-tobacco activist from the Beijing-based ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development, a non-governmental organization committed to smoking control, there are four methods that have proved effective in controlling smoking in Western countries: raising taxes on tobacco companies so that they have to increase the price of cigarettes; banning smoking in public places; printing large health warnings on cigarette packets; and banning tobacco companies from sponsoring sporting, cultural or charity events.
During this year’s full session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, in March, Minister of Health Chen Zhu revealed that the government was planning to increase taxes on mid- and lowend cigarettes in a bid to curb expanding tobacco consumption in the country.
“We notice that most of the new smokers are young adults, who consume low-end cigarettes and are sensitive to prices. As such, I’m confident that the tax hike will effectively reduce the number of smokers without affecting fiscal revenues,” he said.
Mounting health concerns pushed authorities to raise the levy on cigarettes from 6 to 11 percent in May 2009. But the move didn’t curb cigarette use as some experts expected.
The retail price of cigarettes didn’t go up accordingly because the CNTC gave up its profits to maintain stable cigarette prices, according to Wu.
“Only when retail prices go up along with a raised levy on cigarettes could the number of smokers be affected,” said Yang Gonghuang, Director of the CDC’s Tobacco Control Office.
International studies have found that when tobacco prices rise by 1 percent, the number of smokers goes down by about 0.4 percent.
In China, about half of the smokers consume low-end cigarettes priced below 5 yuan($0.79), according to a CDC survey in 2011.
Meanwhile, some anti-smoking lawmakers and political advisors proposed putting graphic health warnings on cigarette packs, similar to those found in other countries.
The graphic warning labels typically picture diseased lungs, damaged hearts and gangrenous toes, an abrupt contrast to the beautiful mountains, rivers and historical sites often pictured on Chinese cigarette packs.
“People have the right to accurate information about the harm of smoking through health warning labels on tobacco products,”said Ma Li, Director of the NPC’s Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee.
In China, only 23.2 percent of adults believe that tobacco use would cause strokes, heart attacks and lung cancer, Ma said.
“Packaging labels are the easiest, most effective and most direct way to warn about smoking. Large graphic images are very effective at keeping would-be smokers at bay, especially young people,” Ma said.
Furthermore, a public smoking ban was also included in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), which was adopted by the NPC in March last year. Meanwhile, some Chinese cities have also been passing legislation to control smoke.
In March, Beijing unveiled a draft of antismoking regulation, stipulating that smoking will be completely banned in indoor public places, offices and on public transportation. There will be heavier fines of 50 yuan ($7.91) to 200 ($31.62) for violators, and institutions or businesses that do not enforce the ban will be fined 5,000 yuan($790.51) to 10,000 yuan ($1,581.03).
Cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong Province and Harbin in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province are also considering local antismoking regulations.
Meanwhile the MOH is looking to include smoking cessation counseling in the country’s basic healthcare system and provide coverage to drugs that reduce dependence on smoking, Minister of Health Chen revealed at a chronic disease seminar held in Shanghai on March 31.
“I strongly support adding smoking cessation counseling and medicine to the healthcare system,” said Vice Minister Huang. “If we begrudge spending now, we have to pay more in the future because smoking is a major cause of many diseases.”
Huang said that the cost of helping a person quit smoking is about 500 yuan ($79.05) to 2,000 yuan ($316.21), but lung cancer treatment costs would be more than 100,000 yuan ($15,810.28).
China signed the convention in 2003 and made it effective as of January 2006, pledging to fulfill its FCTC obligations before January 9, 2011. However, there has been no national legislation to ban smoking in public places.
To further curb tobacco use across the country, the Ministry of Health (MOH) issued an ordinance on May 1, 2011, establishing a ban on smoking in 16 types of public indoor venues, including hospitals, schools, bars, restaurants and hotels.
But the ban has proven to be a failure so far due to lax enforcement, said Suo Chao, a spokesman for the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control (CATC). “The ban has barely had any effect because there are no specific penalties for people who violate the ban,” Suo said.
In the circular, the MOH also proposed establishing a hotline to help those who want to quit smoking.
The proposition is one of a range of smoking control measures included in the MOH circular before the 25th World No Tobacco Day on May 31. It also called for qualified health institutions to set up special smoking cessation outpatient departments.
The circular said that health institutions at all levels should train medical workers in smoking control.
According to WHO, China is the world’s largest tobacco producer, with the most consumers and victims of cigarettes. Statistics show that the country has 320 million smokers, accounting for one third of the world’s smokers, and 740 million people are exposed to second-hand smoke.
About 1.2 million Chinese die from tobacco-related diseases every year, more than the combined number of people who die from AIDS, tuberculosis, traffic accidents and suicide in the country. The figure was expected to exceed 2 million by 2030, Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu said in February.
“With the situation becoming tougher, it will be a long-term task to fight against tobacco in China,” Suo said.
Job still tough
In early March, the China National Tobacco Corp. (CNTC), the country’s cigarette monopoly, disclosed its financial figures for the first time, revealing that its net profit stood at 117.7 billion yuan ($18.60 billion) in 2010.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s tobacco industry paid 752.96 billion yuan ($119.05 billion) in tax in 2011, an annual growth of 22.5 percent, of which 600.1 billion yuan ($94.88 billion) went to the national treasury.
Amid the rapid growth of the tobacco industry, more new smokers are emerging every day in China, especially among the youth and women. The average age that Chinese people start smoking is decreasing, said Huang with the MOH.
A CATC survey of some 40,000 students across China last year showed 15.8 percent of high school students smoked habitually and 22.5 percent said they would consider trying it.
“Smoking has become quite prevalent among students,” Suo said. “Teenagers between 12 and 14 are especially vulnerable. More than 26 percent of them are willing to try smoking.”
It is important to manage the types of influences they are exposed to, Huang said at the launching ceremony of a non-smoking pilot program in schools in Beijing on February 16.
According to the CATC, the reason that more students are starting to smoke is the lack of a smoke-free environment and the lax en- forcement of existing bans.
The survey shows that the majority of teenage smokers buy cigarettes themselves and about 76 percent of adolescent smokers said that there is at least one cigarette shop within 200 meters from their school.
“The earlier people pick up smoking, the less likely they are to quit smoking in the future, and minors, who have a poor sense of self-control, are more likely to be tempted by cigarettes than adults,” Huang said.
Also, Duan Jiali, Secretary General of the Youth Tobacco Control Commission under the CATC, said that teachers and parents should set a good example for teenagers by not smoking in front of them at school or at home, which is the most influential way of stopping adolescents from smoking.
“When teenagers see adults around them smoke, they might do it too,” said Liu Changming, Headmaster of the Beijing No.4 High School. “It’s important to provide them with a smoke-free environment in school through awareness campaigns or regulations.”
Meanwhile, Huang warned that greedy tobacco merchants have also begun to fix their sights on women.
The number of female smokers aged between 15 and 24 is on the rise, said the 2010 China Tobacco Control Report published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The situation is especially serious in large cities such as Shanghai, where statistics from 2002 to 2009 show the smoking rate among women aged 20 to 39 increased from less than 2 percent to over 7 percent while the national average was about 3 percent, according to a study by the School of Public Health at the Shanghai-based Fudan University.
The study focused on 2,000 residents in Shanghai and revealed that while the number of men smoking remained stable over the years, the number of female smokers tripled in the same period.
According to the 2010 China Tobacco Control Report, China’s domestic tobacco companies imitated their overseas peers with marketing strategies aimed at women.
Zheng Pinpin, an associate professor at Fudan University in Shanghai who led the study, said, “When the traditional market of men-oriented cigarettes was saturated and even began to decline, tobacco companies made greater efforts to entice women to smoke.”
Curbing the ‘sickness’
According to Wu Yiqun, an anti-tobacco activist from the Beijing-based ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development, a non-governmental organization committed to smoking control, there are four methods that have proved effective in controlling smoking in Western countries: raising taxes on tobacco companies so that they have to increase the price of cigarettes; banning smoking in public places; printing large health warnings on cigarette packets; and banning tobacco companies from sponsoring sporting, cultural or charity events.
During this year’s full session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, in March, Minister of Health Chen Zhu revealed that the government was planning to increase taxes on mid- and lowend cigarettes in a bid to curb expanding tobacco consumption in the country.
“We notice that most of the new smokers are young adults, who consume low-end cigarettes and are sensitive to prices. As such, I’m confident that the tax hike will effectively reduce the number of smokers without affecting fiscal revenues,” he said.
Mounting health concerns pushed authorities to raise the levy on cigarettes from 6 to 11 percent in May 2009. But the move didn’t curb cigarette use as some experts expected.
The retail price of cigarettes didn’t go up accordingly because the CNTC gave up its profits to maintain stable cigarette prices, according to Wu.
“Only when retail prices go up along with a raised levy on cigarettes could the number of smokers be affected,” said Yang Gonghuang, Director of the CDC’s Tobacco Control Office.
International studies have found that when tobacco prices rise by 1 percent, the number of smokers goes down by about 0.4 percent.
In China, about half of the smokers consume low-end cigarettes priced below 5 yuan($0.79), according to a CDC survey in 2011.
Meanwhile, some anti-smoking lawmakers and political advisors proposed putting graphic health warnings on cigarette packs, similar to those found in other countries.
The graphic warning labels typically picture diseased lungs, damaged hearts and gangrenous toes, an abrupt contrast to the beautiful mountains, rivers and historical sites often pictured on Chinese cigarette packs.
“People have the right to accurate information about the harm of smoking through health warning labels on tobacco products,”said Ma Li, Director of the NPC’s Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee.
In China, only 23.2 percent of adults believe that tobacco use would cause strokes, heart attacks and lung cancer, Ma said.
“Packaging labels are the easiest, most effective and most direct way to warn about smoking. Large graphic images are very effective at keeping would-be smokers at bay, especially young people,” Ma said.
Furthermore, a public smoking ban was also included in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), which was adopted by the NPC in March last year. Meanwhile, some Chinese cities have also been passing legislation to control smoke.
In March, Beijing unveiled a draft of antismoking regulation, stipulating that smoking will be completely banned in indoor public places, offices and on public transportation. There will be heavier fines of 50 yuan ($7.91) to 200 ($31.62) for violators, and institutions or businesses that do not enforce the ban will be fined 5,000 yuan($790.51) to 10,000 yuan ($1,581.03).
Cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong Province and Harbin in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province are also considering local antismoking regulations.
Meanwhile the MOH is looking to include smoking cessation counseling in the country’s basic healthcare system and provide coverage to drugs that reduce dependence on smoking, Minister of Health Chen revealed at a chronic disease seminar held in Shanghai on March 31.
“I strongly support adding smoking cessation counseling and medicine to the healthcare system,” said Vice Minister Huang. “If we begrudge spending now, we have to pay more in the future because smoking is a major cause of many diseases.”
Huang said that the cost of helping a person quit smoking is about 500 yuan ($79.05) to 2,000 yuan ($316.21), but lung cancer treatment costs would be more than 100,000 yuan ($15,810.28).