Smoking ban in a restaurant and pub looks hazy in China
2010
Smoking ban in a restaurant and pub looks hazy in China 2010 |
China: The largest tobacco consumer worldwide
Departure Herald; 26 m length, from the Chinese Xuande reign period (1425-1435 AD); the painting shows
the emperor's large procession heading towards the imperial tombs of the Ming emperors located about 50 kms
north of the capital Beijing.
Future of smoking ban in China looks hazy.
China committed itself to enforce the indoor smoke-free environment within five years when it signed
on to the 'World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control' in January 2006.
The five years are soon up, and it is the time to make good on the pledge. To that end, the Ministry
of Health held a press conference earlier this week, to declare that smoking should be banned in all
public venues, workplaces and on transportation by 2011. It also vowed to ban smoking in all its offices
in four months and said all hospitals should go smoke-free by 2011. To drive the message home further,
ministry employees will no longer be allowed to give cigarettes as gifts, a common tradition in Chinese's
business culture. However, Jiang Yuan, the vice director of the CDC Tobacco Control Office of China,
fears that it is almost impossible to realize this target next year for China. She said only a few cities
in China have so far approved local tobacco-control regulation, such as Shanghai, Hangzhou and
Guangzhou, but even there the smoking ban is mostly targeting offices and public working areas,
excluding restaurants or bars. She said that without national legislation, the WHO requirement is
unlikely to be achieved.
Source: The Wall Street Journal May 14, 2010
Smoking ban in all indoor public places, work places, and public transportation
Yang Qing, an official from China's Ministry of Health of China, disclosed at a recent press conference that,
from January 2011, smoking will be banned entirely from all indoor public places, work places, on public
transportation, and other areas on the Chinese mainland. In May 2009, several numbers of departments
including the Ministry of Health, State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly issued a
document, which asked all military medical institutions and at least 50% of other hospitals to ban smoking
entirely to prepare for the year 2011 ban.
Source: China Retail News.com. May 26, 2010
For creating legislation on stopping smoking at public venues and workplaces
Chinese's cities set to order ban on smoking to protect people from exposure to secondhand smoke. Seven
cities of Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenyang, Harbin, Nanchang, Lanzhou, Shenzhen, will take the first steps in
creating legislation on stopping smoking at public venues and workplaces. However, smoking is allowed in
certain areas open for people, facing problems that the enforcement of smoking bans is rather poor. People
in Chana, which is known as the largest tobacco consumer, can finally enjoy a smoke-free environment,
with the support of the pilot cities municipal governments and legislatures.
China has 350 million smokers. Official statistics show 540 million non-smokers are exposed to the hazards
of secondhand smoke. One million smoking-related deaths are reported each year in China, passive smoking
causes around 100,000 deaths annually in the country. "In that regard, the project, if realized, would help
save millions of lives through reducing tobacco consumption and reducing secondhand smoking," said
Dr Sinead Jones with Union."The project would be scaled up to cover the whole nation in the future to
protect more people from smoking," said Wang. Xie Zhiyong, professor with the China University of
Political Science and Law, said by weighing the benefits and risks of tobacco. The country should take
bolder steps in smoking and tobacco control. For smoking bans in public places, legislation comes first.
Official statistics show smoking costs the nation more than 252 billion yuan ($37 billion) each year in medical
costs, fire and environmental pollution, far beyond the tax revenue generated from the industry. At present,
health administrations are in command of prohibiting smoking in venues open to a public, which are usually
poorly staffed, and some local governments count heavily on the tobacco industry as a major source of tax
revenue, which as a result makes smoking more difficult to control, he said, adding that tobacco companies
in China are all State-owned. Smoking control might be the first step towards tobacco control, which needs
support from the decision maker, the legislature and the media, Xie Zhiyong added.
Source: China Daily, January 18.2010
WHOタバコ規制枠組み条約批准から5年目の中国で公共的空間での全面禁煙が起動する気配が強くなってきた。
中国厚生省担当官は2010年1月から中国本土内すべての公共的な室内空間、職場、公共交通機関での全面禁煙を
実施することを公表した。先ず主要都市での喫煙規制を実施し、その後で国内全域に拡げる戦略をとる模様である。
ただし、完全に実施できるかどうか疑問視する声が非常に多いのも事実だ。どのような展開になるか注視して
行きたい。
Smoking Ban in China
Difficulty in introducing a carpet smoking ban in China.
中国に於ける職場禁煙、レストラン、居酒屋喫煙規制
執筆 医学博士 宮本順伯
★This Web site is link-free.
he article was written in July 2010, by Junhaku Miyamoto, M.D., PhD.
Copyright (C) 2010 Junhaku Miyamoto, All rights reserved.
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