In China, Cigarettes are GOOD for You
Apparently the known health risks caused by cigarette smoking don’t apply overseas.
Taken from The Globe And Mail
Cigarettes, according to China’s tobacco authorities, are an excellent way to prevent ulcers. They also reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease, relieve schizophrenia, boost your brain cells, speed up your thinking, improve your reactions and increase your working efficiency.
Pay no attention to those lung cancer warnings – they’re nonsense. You’re more likely to get cancer from cooking smoke! Those are the words of wisdom from China’s state-owned tobacco monopoly, the world’s most successful cigarette-marketing agency. With annual sales of 1.8 trillion cigarettes, the Chinese are responsible for nearly 1/3 of all cigarettes smoked on the whole planet.
The official website of the tobacco monopoly claims cigarettes are a kind of miracle drug: solving your health problems, helping your lifestyle, strengthening the equality of women, and even eliminating loneliness and depression. “Smoking removes your troubles and worries,” says a 37-year-old female magazine editor, quoted approvingly on the website. “Holding a cigarette is like having a walking stick in your hand, giving you support. “Quitting smoking would bring you misery, shortening your life.” Such statements are widely believed in China.
2/3 of Chinese men are smokers, and surveys show that approx. 90% believe their habit has little effect on their health, or is good for them. Even in China’s medical community, 60% of male doctors are smokers. No wonder Western tobacco companies are drooling over the Chinese market of 360 million smokers.
This week, a group of Canadian experts went to China in an effort to convince Chinese smokers of more realistic effects of smoking. They distributed anti-smoking posters, visited cancer patients, showed the graphic warnings on Canadian cigarette packs, and lectured on how the anti-smoking campaign has reduced Canada’s lung-cancer rate. They face a struggle in China, a country where the tobacco industry provides 60 million jobs and 10% of national tax revenue.
“In China today, the economy comes first and everything else is secondary, including health care,” Dr. Jean Couture, a Quebec surgeon, said. “You wonder if anyone in the government is conscious of how great the smoking problem is. There’s no public education program. The Chinese anti-smoking association is very weak and has almost no money. Within 20 years, China could have the majority of all smoking deaths in the world.” Couture leads anti-smoking campaigns in 4 Chinese provinces, and has been involved with China’s smoking problem since 1990.
As Canadians distributed posters at a hospital, they saw a number of people smoking in the hospital. A hospital shop was openly selling cigarettes. While smoking rates have fallen sharply in Canada in the past two decades, the rate in China is still rising. The number of Chinese smokers is growing by 3 million a year, despite an estimated 1.3 million tobacco-related deaths annually.
Chinese cigarettes are cheap — as little as 30 cents a pack — and the health warnings are hidden in small print on the sides of the packages. Though cigarette advertising is technically illegal, tobacco companies are allowed to promote their corporate names. Children can easily buy cigarettes at Chinese shops, despite an official ban on sales to those under 18. Money, money, money.
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HAHAHAHAHAH…you have got to be kidding!!
Are you serious? How ignorant do you have top be to believe this bulllshit?
This is the weirdest thing I’ve read about Tobacco lies. Do the Chinese people believe this?
i wish i lived in china
Cigarettes are healthy? Jeez commi’s would believe anything.
I hope the children and next generations are smart enough to understand this bad games and play the game in another way. First the childrens must learn chess in school and if they understand this they understand a little bit about the world.
dunt u just h8 the communist?
there is a reason ppl smoke it makes you feel good if it makes you feel good then y not do it?? there is a reason we all do stuff. and the reason is clear for tabacco. try going out and doing stuff for you self and not listen to others you all are just a buch of brain washed streight edge bitches do stuff for you self not for you gov.
Duh, that only want to kill off they unimportant part of their population.
That’s it – I’m moving to china!
I’m so f-ing tired of the health nazis here in the west
This is not so very different than it is here in the US. It may not be cigarettes here, but take a look at our giant cola industry and our beef industry. Cola products and beef are surely making Americans unhealthy. So before we ridicule another country, let us take a good look here. They have lung cancer, we have chronic obesity. And we should know better in this country. We have every opportunity to educate ourselves on health matters. But too many in this country believe the industry lies, and those who speak out are labeled nuts.
i love it. people criticizing other people for being “ignorant” while being completely ignorant of their own ridiculous beliefs (yes, that is an assumption, but i have yet to meet a single person who doesn’t believe in some thing that’s completely ludicrous)
This dumbfounds me.China has the best technology, smartest people and this should be like a walk in the park for them to figure out. They must know and do not care.
I’m officially quit from cigarettes, but there’s still parts of my mind that regret it. I like reading this, because if it’s true it’s great. We’ve got plenty of vices in America. We shouldn’t point fingers at the Chinese.
I don’t smoke, but I am taking psychology and we just learned about neurotransmitters and what different drugs do to your brain. And while it is unfortunate that China didn’t explain the negative effects smoking can have, all of the information that they did provide is valid. If only both sides of the world could provide all of the information to their people…
The same was said about cigarettes in America (ane believed) until relatively recently.
But still…$0.30/pack?! Where do I sign up??
The anti smoking zealots are more dishonest than the tobacco companies. As a Libertarian I say let the people do what they want. If you don’t like it. too bad.
…another reason i’m not a fan of china.
ha ha ha hhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa
I have been living in China for the past 3 years, and while I agree that the amount of smoking here is nothing short of ridiculous, I think the article is a little off base when suggesting that Chinese people do not realize the health ramifications. While most men in China do smoke, they also do know of its adverse health effects. Rather than denying them or being “ignorant” of them, the pervailing attitude is “fuck it, that’s too far away for me to be worried about now.” There also is an element of machoness which figures into it, as if sucking up the health effects makes you more of a man. While this does certainly have some undertones of what we would think of as ignorance, the problem definitely is not that people don’t know cigarettes are bad for them.
Well you should watch this video about a smoking experiment, maybe it helps you http://www.smoking-video.com
Too bad the statistics in the fourth paragraph contradict each other. If 2/3 of Chinese men smoked, that would be well over the provided statistic of 360 million people, and that isn’t even accounting for women smokers. And with that sort of skewed data, who can say that the whole article isn’t biased, which it obviously is. What people don’t realize is that while tobacco companies spout off all sorts of bullshit, anti-tobacco organizations do the exact same thing.
I gotta agree with Michael there. I’m from China, and 100% of the smokers I know (including myself) knows that smoking is bad. However, it does bring some much needed relief to the daily struggle, what’s the point of living a long healthy life if you might kill yourself because of it?
lol… that math thing was funny… ok sry yeah I think that is really stupid! I thought that people from china were smart… wait if people from china live long.. and 2/3s of there men smoke… mybe I should start smoking… LOL I WOULD NEVER DO THAT!
Anti-smoking is a compaign from Corporate America. Pharmaceutical is the second largest business after weaponary. If you rewind back to 10-15 years, there were almost none anti-smoking compaigns. So, why suddenly they are there?. Pharmaceutical companies found no competitor against tobacco industries and hence they came up with introduction of nicotine patches and gums. The production and retail marketing of such products before cunsumers’ taxes were close to 10$. Competing tobacco packs (which were sold around 2-3$ a pack) would not help anyone to move to expensive anti-smoking or so called ‘nicotine’ patches. Corporate america’s trend of bribing to upper level administrators (same as Hilary Clinton was bribed by Insurance companies to quit her compaign against universal healthcare – ref: ‘Sicko’ by Michael Moore) worked to elevate prices of cigarette packs close to 10$ so people would have equal prices available to patches. This has worked. Phamaceutical companies have their cuts now.
Chinese do smoke a lot but why there life expectancy is so high? There are around 3000 chemicals in a cigarette smoke, but when you buy 3000 apples you do get a few bad apples too. If someone makes money by scaring a mass based on bad apples then I think its really a brilliant idea. A scare and earn philosophy.
Grandfather of my friend is a 107 years old, still an energetic person who has been smoking since he was 17. People are brain washed and became brave enough to chant no smoking no smoking without knowing what actually a cigarette is and they feel that they are nice and good people voicing with science of non-sense and science of rubbish. Same as peak oil and deep-well oil theory where peak oil theory is all rubbish imposed by corporations to gain from world economy by circulating false informations by all means, as usual.
Anti-smoking is observed only in first world countries where life expectancy is almost same as other non anti-smoking compaigned countries. Its all business!!
Smokers dont visit physicians as often as non-smokers. Much of chemicals in smoke are natural inhibitors of several diseases, much are harmless though excess of everything is harmful like if you drink a lot of water you can die too.
That video by somone about smoke was nothing more than a big laugh. Showing stain on a napkin of inhaled and a non inhaled blow of smoke. If you drink red wine you do get your tougne red. Nothing much to say about that foolish video.
Moreover, its the tar of ciggarette paper that makes that stain strong.
Once two patients were admitted in the same hospital. A smoker and a non-smoker. Doctors said that non-smoker is sick because of air pollution and smoker is sick because he is a smoker. wow.. bravo doctors!!
Anyways, I need to lit a cigarette and get relaxed. Laterz.
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