وطن نيوز
While major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been able to completely ban smoking indoors beginning in 2007, this has been far more challenging in other cities like Chongqing.
In 2020, the city passed a law banning smoking in public places, but a loophole meant certain establishments such as restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues were allowed to set up indoor smoking areas, exposing countless others to second-hand smoke.
“Smoking is strictly prohibited in the indoor areas of public places where smoking areas can be designated,” said the text of the law.
“It has become a pattern that whenever sub-national jurisdictions try to pass smoke-free laws, you have the STMA following them (to exert pressure to water down the laws) because they don’t want the momentum to spread from big cities like Beijing and Shanghai,” said Dr Gan, who has spent his career studying China’s tobacco control policies.
Crucially, there is no national-level smoke-free legislation that will make it mandatory for all provinces and regions to adhere to, wrote Peking Union Medical College’s Dr Xia Wan in CCDCWeekly, a publication by China’s Center for Communicable Diseases and Control, in an article in 2022.
In November 2014, the State Council released a draft on national tobacco control guidelines to meet its obligations under WHO’s FCTC framework, the first time such guidelines had been introduced at national level.
“This draft was supposed to finish seeking advice, opinions and comments from the public by the end of 2014,” Dr Xia wrote.
“But unfortunately, the draft is still stuck in that stage and has not progressed further.”
Furthermore, regulation across cities remain lax and it is not an uncommon sight to see people lighting up under “no smoking” signs in eateries.
The STMA did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2021, China’s top health body, the National Health Commission, released its second ever report detailing the ill effects of smoking – an update from a previous version in 2012.
With more than half the male population smoking, over 1 million people lose their lives to tobacco use every year, a number that could double by 2030.
It also noted that “e-cigarettes are unsafe and pose a health hazard” but offered no solutions to the issue.
Electronic cigarettes
Electronic cigarettes and electronic nicotine delivery systems – more commonly known as vapes – have been regulated in China since 2022 and cartridges with flavours like strawberry, green tea and even cola have been banned in a bid to stop the young picking up smoking.
But results are mixed: while such vapes no longer easily available, one could still walk up to any number of e-cigarette shops dotting the streets, where retailers pull out flavoured stock from under the counter.
In private chats on social media platform WeChat, sellers also directly market to consumers, sending posters and catalogues every time a new flavour hits the market.
At a shop in Beijing, where this reporter was offered an ice lemon tea-flavoured vape, the shop assistant said it was impossible to stamp out demand.
“We’re just more discreet about it and don’t display what we have on offer. Also, if we see young people coming in to buy, we won’t sell to them,” said the assistant, who wanted to be known only by her surname Su.
In eateries and even shops across major cities, people can still be seen puffing away indoors, leaving cloyingly sweet vapour in their wake.
With smoking so socially accepted, those who have successfully quit say it usually takes a life-changing event to provide a much-needed jolt.
Aircraft engineer Li Peng, 52, kicked a 30-year habit only after discovering nodules in his lungs during a medical check two years ago.
“I’ve been smoking since I was a young apprentice nearly 30 years ago and even though my wife kept urging me to quit, I found it hard because it’s such a social activity too,” he said.
“After the medical scare, where the doctor told me I could either quit or risk it developing into something more severe, I got the boost I needed to go cold turkey.”
“But I’ll admit it was very difficult in the beginning, especially mornings in the toilet.”
Yet given the industry’s strong hold over the market, China is unlikely to go cold turkey any time soon.
“The anti-smoking lobby is calling for the tobacco monopoly to be broken up from the regulator, but I don’t think the government is willing or interested in doing that because it takes huge political will and capital,” said Dr Gan.
Since 2021, the STMA has been swept up in a corruption probe that has involved nearly two dozen current and former senior executives, including the retired head of an Anhui subsidiary who killed himself after investigations started.
The arrests and investigation of several top STMA officials for corruption are merely part of the anti-corruption campaign rather than an attempt to reform and rein in the tobacco industry, Dr Gan noted.
“The main issue is really a lack of (anti-smoking) education… for instance, if you compare cigarette packets to places like Hong Kong and Singapore, the language is very weak and not prominently displayed,” he said.
“And we don’t do that because of opposition from the tobacco monopoly.”
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