Tobacco ban lauded

A complete ban on tobacco promotion will reduce the harm it does and protect public health, says an editorial in Workers' Daily. The following is an excerpt:

China, the world's largest tobacco producer and consumer, will ban all forms of tobacco promotion by Jan. 2011. This ban has been decided as China's effort to fulfill its commitment to the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The harm tobacco causes is receiving increasing public attention. Statistics show that 66 percent of all male Chinese above 15 are smokers. Of the 1.1 billion smokers around the world, 350 million are Chinese.

To contain the damage tobacco causes to public health, efforts must be made to reduce the population of smokers. A ban on tobacco advertising is a key part of it.

Such a ban has actually been in place since 1996, but firms have managed to sidestep the rules and promote their brands in other more subtle ways such as sponsoring sporting events, or using their logos without mentioning "cigarettes" on television, radio and in newspapers and magazines.

That tobacco promotion has continued to exist under such guises is primarily because some local governments choose to continue to benefit from tobacco taxes. Driven by high profits and intensive competition in the industry, tobacco companies also use advertising as a vehicle to gain market share.

Some publishing companies cannot resist revenues from such advertisements and help tobacco companies find ways to circumvent the ban. This practice has directly stymied efforts in tobacco control.

A complete ban on tobacco promotion will not only help China fulfill its international commitment, but also protect public health.