介绍:
A directive issued by the Chinese government before the Lunar New Year called for government and state officials to refrain from smoking in public, using public funds to buy cigarettes or using cigarettes as official gifts.
One part of this is to stamp out corruption; but if you read it another way, it's possibly to help deter smoking here in China which costs upwards of at least one million lives per year, with an additional 100,000 on passive smoking. A million deaths mean a million jobs lost plus all the cost for health-related treatment.
Yet, tobacco sale also brings in up to 19 billion dollars in tax revenue for the central and provincial governments. So the government has a dilemma: it's got to decide between its own pockets or the wellbeing of its people. But the problem isn't just political or financial--it's cultural.
Exchanging cigarettes as gifts is regarded as a sign of respect and pride at family gatherings--none more so than during the lunar new year.
Further, peer pressure to conform and smoke when everyone else is doing it makes cigarettes even more popular than ever.
- Dr. Angela Pratt, Tobacco Free Initiative, Non-Communicable Diseases Team, China Office, World Health Organisation
- Gregory Yingnien Tsang, Current affairs commentator and Anti-smoking campaigner
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