The World Health Organization released a report last week urging China to use graphic warnings on cigarette packages to fight the tobacco epidemic. It is a sensible and effective idea that China should heed.
Cigarettes kill about one million Chinese each year. That number could reach three million by 2030, if the rate of smoking is not reduced.
There are more than 300 million smokers in China. Nearly 30 percent of adults smoke, including 53 percent of all men. The proportion of people who smoke has remained steady since 2006, but with the population growing, China gained almost 100 million smokers between 1980 and 2012. And with increasing wealth, each smoker consumes more tobacco, soaring from an average of 730 cigarettes a year in 1972 to 6,200 cigarettes in 2013. These numbers point to a devastating health crisis, with great cost to the government in terms of health care expenses as well as personal suffering.
But the Chinese authorities have been slow to acknowledge the health crisis, in part because tobacco production and sales by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration has been contributing 7 percent to 10 percent of total annual central government revenues. Still, the government should understand the enormous long-term economic burden of smoking and pay attention to studies that show medical and labor costs attributed to tobacco use already outweighing increased revenues.
One simple and proven way to reduce tobacco usage is to put explicit, disturbing photos of the harmful effects of smoking on cigarette packages — blackened lungs, oral cancer sores and the like. This has been effective in other countries, and it will be more so in China, because most Chinese smokers are unaware of the health risks. The International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project found that a majority of Chinese smokers do not know that smoking causes strokes, heart disease or any of the other deadly illnesses. For too many Chinese, smoking remains a benign habit.
The simple warning label currently on Chinese cigarette packages says only that smoking is hazardous to your health. Large, clear warnings and images on cigarette packages would be far more effective.
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