Encourage Smoking not Ban It, said Chinese
Smoking ban affected the most the states economy. The same was in China. That’s why Chinese government plan to encourage smoking for to boost economy. But it didn’t think on the people’s health. Because, as is known China has more smokers than any other country. Some 350 million light up here and a million people die from smoking-related diseases each year.
Officials in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter million packs of locally made cigarettes annually or risk being fined.
Scientists reported that even the Gong’an county government in Hubei province has ordered its staff to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei-produced cigarette brands a year.
In the hopes of tobacco raising tax revenue and boosting the regional economy, the county told civil servants, including teachers, to smoke more cigarettes of the local brands every year.
The government reported that it intended to pursue an investigation into the habits of government employees to see if any of them smoked smuggled cigarettes.
But those found smoking international brands or brands from other provinces could be fined or fired from their jobs. But if bureaucrats and state employees failed to consume the required amount (400 cartons for most departments), their budgets would be cut.
For to produce cigarettes in their country, Chinese government need to include in their budgets $500,000, said researchers.
A member of the cigarette-marketing supervision team told that the new legislation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax.
Anti-smoking researchers said that his low is pure corruption. It is collaboration between officials and businessmen to put the taxpayers’ money into their own pockets.
