Smoking costs unaffordable

China will be unable to bear the economic and social costs of tobacco smoking if it doesn’t speed up its tobacco-control efforts, according to a story by Sun Wenyu for the People’s Daily Online.

A recent report issued jointly by 37 organizations, including the Chinese Preventative Medicine Association and the Chinese Association of Tobacco Control, said that China’s tobacco consumption accounted for 44 percent of worldwide consumption.

China had added 15 million new smokers in five years and the country needed urgently to step up its efforts to control tobacco.

The results of a nationwide adult tobacco survey that was published in 2015 indicated that 27.7 percent of Chinese people above the age of 15 were smokers. It indicated, too, that the total number of smokers in the country had reached 315 million.

According to the ‘Healthy China 2030’ blueprint issued by the State Council, China aims to lower the proportion of smokers to 20 percent by 2030.

The story said that ‘experts’ believed that tobacco consumption had become a global issue that threatened public health and led to serious consequences. Smoking caused major chronic non-infectious diseases, and these diseases accounted for 85 percent of the total deaths in China.

Though progress had been made, China had a long way to go before it could reach the goals set in the Healthy China 2030 blueprint.

It would be unaffordable for the country to pay for the economic and social losses if it didn’t speed up the process of tobacco control.

The story said that experts had called on the country to pass legislation ‘to establish a smoke-free country and comprehensively ban public smoking’.

‘In addition, the experts believe that China should reduce tobacco advertisements, increase tobacco tax, and make smoking cessation a basic public health service,’ the story said.