When I 1st went to mainland a years back, I was surprise the amount of smoking that goes on there.

I was reading an article that WHO (World Health Org.) says that 60% of people in china don't know that smoking is actually bad for you.  I was surprise to read that if its true.  

Curious if people here have insights in this matter

Oh yeah, they smoke anywhere in China and i do mean anywhere!

Not sure about the WHO article but it could be a possibility. Just comparing the cigarette packs
sold on the Mainland and in HK...the HK ones all have this graphic health warning whereas
the ones in China don't have such advices (they don't even have the old style "smoking causes
cancer" warning on it).

Considering China is massive, so its a possibility that many of the smokers living in the more
rural areas may actually not know i suppose.

[ Last edited by  DutchDoubles at 4-11-2009 22:18 ]

I was reading it in Forbes

I decided to search in WHO's site anyway

http://www.wpro.who.int/media_centre/fact_sheets/fs_20020528.htm

"One survey found that 60% of Chinese adults did not know that smoking can cause lung cancer while 96% were unaware it can cause heart disease."

I was in the mainland for a couple of weeks recently and I can tell you that most of them smoke between bites of dim sum! Then after the meal, most go home to smoke from a bong like pipe. The amount of smoke in restaurants is absolutely disgusting.

Doesn't matter as there is no socialised health care in China...probably why cigs are cheap in countries with no socialised health care.

In the UK smokers make the NHS 8bn £ in profit and more if you include dying early and saving money on pensions.

My god .. 8 billion profit.... Then why are the NHS always asking for money..Is the money been used for expenses for the doctors and directors...

That's a very interesting point. In country such as Canada, where there is a public health care system, cigarettes are very expensive because of the "sin" tax which makes a pack cost almost $10 CDN a pack or about $65-70 RMBs. When I was in the mainland, a pack of cigs were going for $3.50 RMB or about 50 cents CDN. It's not surprising that most people smoke like chimneys.

How many people do you think would quit if the price of cigarettes in China went to $100 a pack? Personally, I'm guessing 50-60%

[ Last edited by  R_from_Toronto at 4-11-2009 21:35 ]

There are about 300,000,000 people that smoke in China. Yes, you read that right three hundred MILLION people. That is the equivalent of all the people in the United States. That's about one in four people who smoke in the mainland. i was as shocked as you guys when I read that statistic. I guess that's what you do when you are poor and got nothing to do for fun.

here is why so many people smoke in china. THERE IS NO HEATH CARE SYSTEM like canada does. When buy smokes the chinese government makes from tax, when you get sick. You have to pay for your medical bills, which the government make more money on. So why would the chinese government want people to stop or let people know that smoking is bad for you and it can kill you.

The NHS is always asking for money because it isn't run like a corporation, in corporations when I worked there you had to justify all your out of pocket expenses. to the penny.

While the NHS is run as a trust, it doesn't matter if you are inefficient as it is not a going concern type business, no matter how badly or poorly it spends its money it will always get more money next year.

Its like spending your own wallet with $2000 in it, if you worked and earned it you will spend it carefully...

But if you soend $2000 and once you spend it $2000 appears again you will probably be more reckless in spending it.

Same same for NHS , they piss money up the wall on all sorts of shit, like art sculptures , in Manchester they spent £150K on a fucking rock! which was marked as an art sculpture, that and the stupid system of PFI which is ridiculous..

Ie a hospital costs £5 million to build in ONE go if you pay for it in cash or upfront, instead corrupt MPs who gets bribes off HSBC (the NHS is now owned by HSBC) HSBC owns the PFI contract and builds the hospital and charges them rent and maintenance charges.

Hence HSBC rents them the hospital yearly for 2million for a 25 year period and charge ridiculous amounts of money for the most trivial of things, changing a light bulb costs £125 in some of the contracts I've seen.So a 5 million item ends up costing 50million.

Below is my opinion, and my opinion only.... you can feel free to disagree with it...


In regards to the question of people not knowing smoking is bad for you.....

The very first puff you ever took on a cigarette, what did you do?
What did it feel like?

a) MMmm.... soooo good!!!
or
b) *cough* *cough* *cough*

I can't imagine ANYONE experiencing a) the first several puffs of their first smokes....
When you experience b) your body is TELLING YOU that it's bad!!!!

Of course peer pressure, and advertisements tell you otherwise... and you keep doing something bad, until you get used to it, and start to like it.

The best thing my dad ever did, was let me try stupid shit when I was still a kid.
First puff of smoke when I was 6.  Hacked and wheezed for several minutes... hated smoke ever since....
Gave me beer around the same time.... I puked.... now I don't drink either....
I got to experience these things way before peer pressure and advertisements could make me believe something contrary to what my body is telling me is bad....

Now... this isn't an "anti-smoking" post....
My dad and all my uncles smoke.... I just choose not to...
As long as you know the risks, more power to you.....

I just don't like it when idiots bitch and moan about not knowing it's bad for them... and start suing the cigarette companies....

Imagine standing infront of a smoking BBQ pit... one that's just billowing smoke.... and stay within the smoke...
is that good for you?  Of course not....
So smoke coming from a nicely packaged stick is miraculously safe for you?

Again... this rant isn't toward smokers in general...
It's toward smokers that feel like they were tricked into thinking that smoking was somehow safe for them... and want to sue...
I hate idiots....  *sigh*

Same goes for alcohol or fatty foods.  

sometimes we know its bad for you yet we continue to drink & eat fatty foods.  again, I was just surprise the the mainlanders don't know accrd to that study.

What surprising is not that they smoke..its how much they smoke..my gosh

try smoking from a hookah pipe, it completely removes the harsh abrasiveness of tobacco,

Also try smoking a clove cigarette they are 10-20 times stronger but they don't have all the shit that class 1 cigarettes have in them, I mean wtf are they doing by putting arsenic and cyanide and TAR in cigs?.

So did your dad give you STD's so that you would always practice sex? (sorry, couldn't resist, I know I'm a jerk)

Yeah, smoking smells and those cancer sticks are plentiful in China because there's no OBAMA CARE! What bothers me the most is the lack of etiquette. Others in here mentioned how they smoke everywhere and it's unfortunately true.

Just look at the Wynn Macau and Ventian. The beautiful carpet and marble gets ruined pretty quickly when there's cigarette ash and butts all over the place. Or that smokers puff in your face instead of blowing the smoke overhead


Hookers are great too! Much appreciate if you can clarify a few things! Water bongs are not as popular nowadays because it reduces the kick/effectiveness of THC. So is the strength of nicotine unaffected by water vapour?

Always nice to smoke a hookah with some mates over conversation at a cafe after a day at
the office (something different from hitting the pubs for a pint).

A couple of my non-smoker mates do like hookah precisely because they think it ain't as
harmful as a cigarette and its usually flavoured (i.e. strawberry, orange, apple etc).

Pity i can't put a hookah in my coat pocket though

WTF are you talking about? The NHS is a pubilcly funded healthcare system and doesn't make any 'profit'. What you should be saying is that smoking COSTS the NHS billions of pounds a year. Talk about getting things backward.

idiots? really?

if they managed to sue the tobacco companies successfully, i think they are quite smart!

i would want to sue Marlboro too if there's a high chance of getting compensation!!!