Ugly packs seen as ‘incompatible’

At the National People’s Congress last week, a top tobacco monopoly official said that cigarette-pack graphic health warnings would be incompatible with “Chinese cultural traditions”, according to a piece on the Shanghaiist.com citing a Reuters story.

Duan Tieli, deputy director of China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Association, told reporters the monopoly therefore had no intention of applying graphic warnings to its cigarette packaging.

Although graphic warnings have become familiar in many countries, China’s cigarettes sell in packs that are often highly attractive, with the textural warnings: ‘Smoking is harmful to your health’ and ‘Quitting smoking early is good for your health’.

However, China has come under pressure from the World Health Organization to try to reduce smoking, most recently in a report claiming that Beijing’s famously noxious air pollution didn’t even begin to compare with the toxicity of the air in a restaurant with three smokers.