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World
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| AFP Interview: Vested interests, ignorance aid China's tobacco industry17 September 2004 15 23 Source »»»Here (in China) the problem is perhaps made worse by the fact that the tobacco industry is a national monopoly, and therefore the government has a vested industry in the tobacco industry," Burke Fishburn, regional coordinator for the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative, told AFP in an interview. Advertisement China is the world's largest producer of tobacco, and its estimated 350 million smokers, or some 36 percent of its total population, represent a huge market and tobacco revenues are substantial. "There are some provinces that rely on the majority of their government revenue from tobacco profit -- such as Yunnan province -- and it poses special problems for them," said Fishburn at a regional meeting here. China is not alone in this problem as "the economic interests are a barrier in general for any country that is trying to do tobacco control in the face of the tobacco industry's interest or influence", he said. This means that getting people to quit or preventing young people from taking up the habit will be a lengthy process, one that could possibly take decades before the real risks of smoking are generally understood by the public. "They are already seeing tremendous health care costs but they won't feel the full impact for another 10 to 20 years," said Fishburn. More than one million people a year die in China from tobacco-related diseases, including lung cancer and heart disease. By 2050, the WHO estimates that figure could rise to more than three million, putting an even greater burden on China's crumbling health service. Already tobacco-related illnesses cost the government 6.5 billion dollars annually. In China, as elsewhere, it is the poor who tend to smoke the most and they also know the least about smoking-related health risks. "Like other countries that started to address the tobacco issues maybe a couple of decades ago ... there is a level of understanding about the health effects of smoking," Burke said. "The problem is most people, most men, do not really personalise the health risks -- they don't really understand that it's going to be a problem for them, it's a problem for families, it's a problem for society. "There is a very low level of awareness of the dangers of second-hand smoke exposure. It is not well understood by smokers themselves which is why you see smoking all over the place." Fishburn said the problem with tobacco control was that it was a very long process. "You're not going to see reduction in prevalence, for example in China, from 60 percent of males smoking to 10 percent of males smoking overnight," he said. Fishburn said that the WHO wanted to see higher cigarette prices in China because "that alone is the single most powerful thing you can do to reduce tobacco demand". Cigarettes in China can cost as little as 25 US cents a pack and that "just encourages more people to smoke". "If they institute smoke-free policies it will begin to change public attitudes about smoking, social acceptability of smoking," he said. China is also a recent signatory to the WHO's Convention on Tobacco Control, which promises a host of restrictive measures covering advertising, marketing, pricing and taxation of tobacco. If its legislature were to ratify the proposal it would be a major step in the right direction, Fishburn said. "But we think policy makers here need to be convinced from an economic viewpoint."
AFP
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