2011 May 31 World Non-Smoking Day: Will Beijingers Stub Out?
Put down the lighter, China. Today is World No Tobacco Day. Does this mean Beijing will enjoy a day of deep, clean breaths? Probably not, seeing as China consumes “50,000 cigarettes every second.” But maybe it's a good time to check in on that ban Beijing enacted earlier this month.
Beijing’s indoor smoking ban went into effect on May 1. The ban has proven to be effective in schools, though we doubt China Daily’s report that “now most Beijing campuses are smoke-free.”
To mark the day, Chinese schools took time to highlight the harms of smoking, which meant kids got to play around with giant cigarettes. Maybe not the most effective anti-smoking campaign.
Other aspects of the ban haven’t fared as well. Only a handful of bars have kicked smokers to the curb (literally) and with no means of enforcement the ban seems to have come to a standstill. That may explain why China didn't receive a World No Tobacco Day award.
Image: China.org.cn
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