Can’t kick the habit
Published September 20th, 2007
Governments as well as people are addicted to the deadly weed
AROUND 700m Asians, mostly men, cannot get through the day without puffing on a cigarette. The habit is thought to kill around 2.3m Asians every year, almost half smoking's global victims. Cases of cancer and other tobacco-related diseases are rising sharply. But health ministries are taking tougher action against smoking. Thailand, which banned it in most public buildings in 2003, is holding hearings on a plan to extend the ban to all places of entertainment. China's press said this month that cigarette makers would be told to put larger health warnings on their packets, including images of skulls, blackened teeth or diseased lungs.
Cigarette consumption in China soared between 1970 and 1990 but has fallen slightly since. There, as elsewhere in Asia, smoking among men is far more common than in the West. The worry, says Burke Fishburn of the World Health Organisation (WHO), is that Asia will follow the Western trend, with more women taking up smoking as men quit. In Vietnam, for example, cigarettes are being peddled to urban women as a "sophisticated" pursuit. …
Related Articles
