China Begins Preperations For A Smokefree Olympics

Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Also Included In: Sports Medicine / Fitness
Article Date: 25 Sep 2007 - 20:00 PDT

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Beijing has started posting "No Smoking" signs in all of its cabs amid efforts to help create a "non-smoking" Olympic Games in 2008.

Local authorities, including the Health Bureau, Transportation Administration Bureau, and Transportation Law Enforcement General Team, jointly launched the public promotion of smokefree cabs.

"Smoking will be banned for both drivers and passengers. Drivers will face a fine of 100 yuan to 200 yuan (13 to 26 U.S. dollars) if caught smoking in cabs," said Ma Yanjie, deputy head of the Taxi Management Department of the Beijing Municipal Transportation Administration Bureau.

Beijing started a drive banning smoking in hospitals, schools, restaurants, government offices and private organizations and other places as from last April to pursue a scientific strategy of development, in an attempt to fulfill the commitment of ensuring a "Green Olympics," said Jin Dapeng, head of the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau.

The municipal government has also drafted a set of regulations banning smoking at Olympic venues, athletes' accommodation areas, and within vehicles designated to serve the event.

Sales of cigarettes would also be banned in all venues, training and accommodation areas.

However, implementation of the ban faces hurdles in Beijing, where almost half the male population are smokers, according to a survey conducted by Horizon Research Consultancy Group.

The concept of a "non-smoking" Olympics, initiated in 1988, has been put into practice since the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Next year's event will be the first "non-smoking" Olympic Games after the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), of which China is a signatory, went into effect in 2005.

The government has pledged to ban all types of tobacco advertising and promotions by 2011 in accordance with its obligations under the FCTC.

Statistics from the Ministry of Health indicates that 350 million people in China, about 26 percent of the country's population and a third of the world's smoking population, are addicted to nicotine while 1 million people die from smoking-related diseases each year.

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