Anti-smoking campaign gets under way in China

China Daily ^ | March 7, 2007

[Eric Blair 2084]

An anti-smoking campaign, "Toward a Smoke-free China", has been launched to get people to give up the habit which could be harmful to health.

The campaign was launched in Beijing on Friday with a fund of $125 million. The money was donated by the New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The two-year campaign will be run by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), Peking Union Medical College and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"The joint scheme will refine and optimize tobacco control intervention in China," said China CDC director Wang Yu, calling for special attention to the problem of young people smoking.

Covering about 20 pilot provinces, the project aims to help combat tobacco use in China by creating smoke-free environments and boosting anti-smoking education.

Among China's 350 million smokers, a staggering 100 million are under the age of 18, according to the Ministry of Health.

To redress the situation, China initiated a nationwide tobacco-free-school campaign in 2003. Both students and teachers are strictly prohibited from smoking, Wang said.

International experiences show that tobacco taxation is one of the most effective ways to reduce tobacco use, said Susan V. Lawrence, head of China programs of the Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids, a US-based youth smoking intervention organization.

Today's children are tomorrow's future and they deserve top attention and care under the tobacco-free scheme, Lawrence said.

A WHO survey shows that tobacco consumption by young people drops by 14 percent when cigarette prices are put up 10 percent.

Lawrence said under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, ratified at the end of 2005, China is currently considering introducing strong warning labels on the use of tobacco products.

[Eric Blair 2084]

I need some help from my fellow politically savvy Capitalist, Free Market Conservative friends on FR.

There are 3 vexing questions that I need answered before I can go to sleep:

1. Isn't it ironic that King Bloomingidiot made his Billions through the free market and capitalism...then used his money to prevent bar and restaurant owners in NYC from doing the same thing after spending millions to become Monarch/Mayor.

Then he turns around and uses his obscene (in a good way, I love it) profits that he gained through capitalism to impose private property and smoking bans, aka Communism on a country that was Communist and has now figured out that Capitalism works but now he wants them to go back to being Communist only in this particular case while remaining Capitalist in other areas until King Bloomberg decides they need to be Communist again in which case he will give them more Capitalist blood money to make them Communist. Wouldn't O Henry blush at the irony?

2. Does anybody understand what I just said? If so, please explain it to me because I don't get it myself.

3. What if anything does a public serpent have to do in order to be ineligible to call her/himself a "Republican". ACU rating under 10? Disagreeing with 90% of the party platform? What?

[Eric Blair 2084]

Big Brother, Nanny State, Grant Junky, Bogus Study, Junk Science, Social Engineering, Sheeple Control, Health Nazi Ping!!!

To be added to or deleted from this ping list, please send me a private message below.

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____________________________________________________________________

Constitution of the Left Wing Nanny State of Liberals:

Picture courtesy of unixfox. All rights reserved. Copyright MMVII. Any use of the pictures descriptions or accounts of this ping without the express written consent of unixfox, Eric Blair, or Major League Baseball is strictly prohibited. Some restrictions apply. Ping not available in all states. For erections lasting longer than four hours, call the Guiness Book of World Records. Use only as directed.

Preamble:

We the People Sheeple of the United States Nanny State, in Order to form a more perfect Union Socialist Utopia, establish Justice Socially engineer a country of non smoking, physically fit, tea totallers, insure domestic Tranquility Smoking bans in bars, limits on unhealthy food and social drinking, provide for the common defense Universal Healthcare, promote the general Welfare health of the population whether they like it or not, in order to save above mentioned Universal Healthcare entitlement program from bankruptcy, and secure the Blessings of Liberty Dependency to ourselves progressive liberals and our Posterity Hitler Youth who we brainwash through public school education, do ordain decree and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Nanny State of Liberals.

[berdie]

Don’t know about you, but I think he divested himself of his Phillip Morris stock and invested in Nicoderm.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

The anti-gun crowd has learned much from the Niconazis successful campaign. To wit: don’t outlaw. Simply restrict the territory, like an anaconda strangling a bit at a time.
Shooters, look forward to fewer and fewer places to shoot and greater restrictions on “toxic” lead ammo, noise, and “poisonous” fumes. Oh yes, and higher taxes on your passtime each year.

[SheLion]

The campaign was launched in Beijing on Friday with a fund of $125 million. The money was donated by the New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Oh sure!  Little control freak BloomingIdiot is going to tell over 30 billion people what they can't do anymore.  Yea, right!

[SheLion]

Oh sure folks!  BloomingIdiot is giving big bucks to China but when he went over to Turkey, he sat on his boney butt with the other Turks and they were all smoking.  BloomingIdiot just sat there grinning.  He didn't say ONE WORD.

What a phony!

2002 or 2003

MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, scourge of the smoking class, has journeyed to the heart of enemy territory. The mayor was in Athens yesterday. After spending more time there today, he heads for Istanbul.

In no way is this meant to slight Greeks or Turks. But if you're looking for cities where people smoke more than wet branches set on fire, you can hardly beat Athens or, even better, Istanbul. Take it from one who spent a good deal of time in Turkey. Entering almost any public building there is like stepping into a pack of Gauloises.

As New Yorkers know, Mr. Bloomberg is a reformed smoker who approaches the subject of evil tobacco with the fervor of a religious convert determined that everyone share his enlightenment. But he sat unflinchingly among smokers in Athens yesterday, and he is unlikely to rebuke the people of Istanbul for their wicked ways. They want to smoke? Well, as the old song goes, that's nobody's business but the Turks'.

Back home, some wish that the mayor would treat New Yorkers the same way. He has become, for smokers and even many nonsmokers, equivalent to Hickey, the preachy salesman in "The Iceman Cometh" who takes the life out of the booze at Harry Hope's saloon.

Mr. Bloomberg's campaign to outlaw smoking in all bars and restaurants drew a band of dissenters the other day to Gallagher's Steak House, on West 52nd Street. Call it the Charge of the Light 'Em Up Brigade. Two dozen people, mainly cigar-smoking men, puffed while they huffed about a crusade that they consider unnecessary, given existing smoking laws that seem to work fine. To them, the proposed ban is zealotry run amok.

"What's to say against them?" the boxing commentator Bert Sugar said of cigars. "They killed George Burns at 100. If he hadn't smoked them, he'd have died at 75." For himself, Mr. Sugar said, he favors a good cigar because "it gives me something to hold onto in case I fall down."

No question, the smoky gathering at Gallagher's was a publicity stunt. But then, like any elected official, the mayor has his own publicity stunts. They are called news conferences.

There is nothing like a politically incorrect event to draw a herd of notebooks and microphones, and the anti-Bloomberg protest was no exception. It was, in the main, a witty group, reaffirming this nonsmoking columnist's conviction that people in a restaurant's smoking section tend to be more interesting, pound for pound, than those at the goody-goody tables.

O.K., some at Gallagher's were uncomfortably gung-ho in defending secondhand smoke. But they were pro-choice in the strictest sense, defending one's right to engage in legal behavior no matter how Neanderthal most people may find it.

"I'm in the business of taking care of customers, and some of them like to smoke," said Bryan Reidy, the restaurant's general manager. "We have a whole section for smokers, and so far we have no complaints from the nonsmokers. We're just concerned about the government making the decision for us."

AS for Mr. Bloomberg's contention that restaurants and bars should be treated as workplaces rather than social establishments, thus requiring government protection for employees, Nick Mellas shrugged. Mr. Mellas has tended bar at Gallagher's since 1966. Somehow, he said, he has made it to 84 with "no respiratory illnesses whatsoever."

Besides, said Francis Facciolo, a cigar-smoking lawyer, "people who work in bars choose that kind of work. If in fact there's a correlation to health problems, which I doubt, it's a choice they've made."

Cigar types far outnumbered cigarette smokers at this protest, and they happily trumpeted the virtues of their vice. "Cigarette smoking can be an isolating activity, something you do by yourself all day" said Gus Waite, who runs a school for actors in Manhattan. "But cigar smoking is primarily a social event with other like-minded people."

The point, Mr. Waite said, is that "there are 10,000 restaurants in this city." Nonsmokers have endless choices. Why, he asked, must every place be tobacco-free, effectively erasing the rights of a minority wishing to engage in an activity that is both legal and perfectly acceptable to many restaurant owners, their employees and their nonsmoking patrons?

The City Council plans a hearing on the issue next month, and there is no guarantee that Mr. Bloomberg's proposal will sail through unscathed. Mr. Waite doubted that the smoke-in would change many minds. But it was important, he said, to at least make a last-gasp stand.

  

[Jeff Gordon]

[old cro]

What a nitwit! Good luck getting the Chinese people to quit. I seriously doubt they will do so voluntarily. Only if the price is raised out of reach of the “common man” will there be any success. Why I don’t think it will happen:
1. The Chinese people have had a little taste of freedom, they are not going to go quietly into the night on this one.
2. The Chinese government, like all governments herding over a population that may turn on them, will keep the price of tobacco low (like alcohol and sex) to keep the “common man” happy. This is common practice in all third world counties with an unsettled population.
Just my opinion

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Asia pinglist.

[johnthebaptistmoore]

This will help screw up the Chinese economy for both the short-term and the long-term along with helping in the unionization of many jobs throughout China.

[Dr. Marten]

“This will help screw up the Chinese economy for both the short-term and the long-term along with helping in the unionization of many jobs throughout China.”

What on earth led you to this bizarre conclusion?

[Dr. Marten]

“Good luck getting the Chinese people to quit.”

You’re partially right, but not for the reasons you listed above.

More and more of the younger generation are starting to get the message to stay away from smoking, but it’s going to take a long and massive educational program to have any real success because the tobacco companies promote smoking as a means of preventing everything from Parkinson’s Disease to Alzheimer’s. Many don’t even believe that smoking causes cancer or heart disease.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[elkfersupper]

The perfect combination - an antismoking campaign in a communist country.

We should all find it disconcerting that the same thing is working so well here.

[TheKidster]

YUCK! He can’t keep his nose out of other states’ business and now he has to go help the comrades in China!
Absolutely amazing.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

don’t outlaw. Simply restrict the territory, like an anaconda strangling a bit at a time.

I think your right about the Chinese government using the incrementalist "restrict the territory" method beloved by the nannies over here.

On a trip to PRC in 1998 I saw that they had smoke-free cars available (for a small surcharge) on intercity trains. By the time I went back in 2001, smoking on domestic airline flights had been banned.