Tobacco Documents Online

u t ; Chinese, the World's Heaviest Smokers 1. ~, 9 1 Told of Habit' n ers f or First Time s Da _.~,.. 3 y:i-~STLINpA MATHEWg chael Pertachuk, the chaltman of the com- i 7Yade Commiasion Feder ; a trr.r.nwrae. s $ONG-China for years mented atter a recent tour, of China ~' HONb the arot~id 'a'a laet haven for smokers, that it wae odd that atnoking should i Slotuialt "in a society which aubordi- l has finally atd<now ;I edged the link De- Mtes even the moet intimate private ¢ tween cancer and cigarettes and pieasure ta the eommon good where ~ antiamo ~P~Sn 7 le are accuatomed to aceepting eo ~ p p g wangnting Dall ~ per aimed at China's inuaectual aupand the authority of a purltantcal'Bovern- `! ptnfesslonal elite, broke the news last ment and where doctors are commit- ' i. wai!k tn an artlcle thateet out ublic- ted to the ... practice of preventive edt in " e c m ~ fm thelh~at time all the health ha- ~.iarda aeaaciated with smoking. Ci- ~ fe it that no ndtlonali catn• prette4 tha nevrepaper declared, ~ in China'a' Pehrtahuk asked. ~ aontribute to bronchitis. emphysema, Now th min Kwan llail haa g g y e i thrat and fung ca~er, hyperter>afon ~ylled an anawer of sorts, laying i and heartdoeettae ~ None of that is likely to strike an ~tude toward~iucoiine at~loor lax of ~ American as a revelation, of course. Ow Gan of Four the dig raced PoU11- g g ,!' _ But the article, signed by two of CDi• , buro clique le I by Chiang Ching, Mao t na s maet distinguished physicians. almost certainly ejolted hundreds at ~-~'a widow. ; millions d Chi ese smokers, for ~~~~~tten by Huang, ~ whom a daily pack of Double Hap -~~ chairman of the Chinese ~; neyec1qat~tt~ has become as mua Academy of Medical Seien¢es, and I i' of We as work, food or sllep. Cbtmg-pu, chairman of the ReseazcD +"Smold~n8lb UCally Chiita'a na- ~tute of Traditional Medicine, said ~otieerved a diplomat ~N b medical establishment had 'tfonai putime , ~ arho t'ecettll flnished a two-year ,p~ the health uof our, ~pand t fn Pekin " tt S Chi g. o maa,y n a neae but had been blocked by "the perni- lv k h I e t at was a wqys riaed amo surp, cloua tnfluentt ot the Gang of Four " T . whea I met ecmeaae who dJdn t I No reliable statletica exist on the i proportion of smokers in the Chinese ~ po ~ptilation but the U 5. Department ot Agriculture reported this month " t8qt China leads the world in the pro- duction and consumption of tobacca China accounted for 725 billion of the 4.2 trilllon cigarettes produced in the world l.atyear. The United States yroducttd 865 blilion, followed by the 5oviet Union with 980 billion: (The The purged radicals are the official ata of the hour, blamed for ing from labor unrest to a Me of toothpaste, so the doctors' explanation will undoubtedly suit the powers-that-be in Peking. But a more plausible reason for China's previous hesitation to condemn smoking is that members of the lead- eeahip realized, often from first•hand experience, that it was not an easy habit to break. easimated populauon, of the tluee Not only Idao; but the other found- 865 mlllion; United ing fathers of the Communist state, eotuttriea~ China , , , 6tates, 218 million; Soviet Union, 258 including the revered Premier Chou milllon-1 Ph Lai, smoked heavily in public. The Chinese may have been the During thei'r lifetime, an anti-smok- to learn about ~~p~ might have struck them however isaton eatth , „ the hazards of smoking. Although the as hypocritical. And considering the US& n general roclaitned traditional Chimse respect for au- to heaPtti in 1964, thority and the peoplt's desire to `~~ - emulate their leadera, such a cam- y de li ld h ~bl w ~~~ ave ma t. p wou ell ~ as s ubee- pa~n p art~apseeaed biarepas ~ mxnt research eoofyrmEtta his find- ~ headway, agw% y ...-. . . va ngn¢w.urc uucru e..- `~ ~faitan to Chitu have long tbW a, based only on e production puzzled by the government's of Chim'b vast government-run to- AoMent IndJfferettcs to amoking. MS- bacco lrtdustry, actually understate , ~ ,. . . B h ' I - _ Y Sc ulz TNAT'5 TNE BEAUr!I OF CAULiN6 HER ON TNE PWONE the extent of China's addicUori to ni- cotine. The current eortatitution auarm- teea all peasant families the right to grow cropt of their own choice on tiny private plots of land. And the crop that many families cultivate turna out not aurprfaingly, to be to- baxo Then they roll their own d- garettea- using scraps from old newa- ktttg it~ In~bbe ek- ment in (.'fdtt hoapitaltty. A (bi• neee wffc welcoming honored guests to herAortu automatically ertendb a plate of tgaref,tea. In restaurants, the hoat proffere a clgarette and a light Etien CAAC, China'b natlonal airline, flies passengers with free cigarettes, long after smoking foes called a halt to auchpn ctice on American carriem. The Chinese government appears to have a finattdal stake in promoting cigarette consumption. The govern- ment tobacco monopoly, which mar- kets all the cigarettea sold on the mainland„imposea a 80% tax on each pack. With a pack eelling for an aver- age of 15 cents, tobacco saies earn substantial revenue for the central government-a source not easily re- placed and thus, perhaps. not easily abandoned. Horeoveri Peking has found wel- come export markets for ita tobacco in the developing nations of Asia and Africa. To expand those markets. Chi- na has resorted occaaionally to Ma- dllaon Avenue-like gimmicks. A Ckti- nese salesman at a recent Philippine trade fair was promoting a new d- garette brand, Sailing Boat, which he insisted included herbs that would "allay asthma and relieve coughs." The Kwangming Daily story, though explicit about all the maladies associated with amoking, offered few clues, about why Mao's successors should suddenly begin crusading against tobacco. One poesibility is that medical practitioners convinced them that cancer had reached epidemic proportions. According to the World Health Otganisauon, cancer iat now iba leading cause of death in Cbina, accotmUftg for about a quarter of all fttalitlea. (In the United States, cut- cer trails hart disease as a cause of dcath. )