Ahead of Beijing Olympics 2008, the Chinese administration is intended to implement several provisions on No-Smoking in defined public places from May 01 onwards. The Olympic host city has vowed to ensure a smoke-free environment for the mega event commencing from Aug 08, 2008.
The provisions on No Smoking in public places of Beijing are based on the decission of 10th Beijing People’s Congress on Dec 23, 1995, which is aimed to achieve the goal of staging a smoke-free Olympics fully recognizing a “thorough smoke-free environment” in public places of Beijing.
The formation of various provisions has been identified by Beijing Municipality according to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control by 2011 proposed the World Health Organization (WHO).
Since 1995, the government of Beijing has given priority to educating and spreading awareness against the evils of smoking thereby bringing people into this participatory network.
Furthermore the municipal Patriotic Health Campaign Committee apart from intensifying education about good health habits and dangerous of tobacco has also given priority to its implementation and inspection. The data is collected by the authority to show positive signal in reducing the average number of smokers.
On Thursday, speaking at a press conference Li Lingyan, Vice Director of Beijing Legislation Office said, "Smoking is closely related to people's lifestyle, and particularly Beijing has a large smoking population, hence it would be difficult to completely eradicate tobacco from certain areas like catering and internet cafes.”
According to the new regulations it is mandatory for hotels, restaurants, bars, internet cafes to have separate smoking zones while places like indoor gyms, stadiums, sporting complexes cultural heritage sites and teaching areas in schools and colleges, government offices to be completely smoke free.
Meanwhile, the responsibility of its speedy implementation and inspection or supervision is completely upon the Patriotic Health Campaign Committee at the municipal, district or county levels may authorize the health bureau at the municipal, district or county levels to perform appropriate administrative punishments.
Sun Xuanli, the Vice Director of Beijing Municipal Patriotic Health Campaign Committee said that the municipal body has trained thousands of tobacco control supervisors who will supervise the enforcement of related regulations in all streets, countryside and towns of Beijing.
At present, all enterprises and public institutions in Beijing City assign 60,000 plus tobacco control Inspectors to supervise and inspect the tobacco control. Besides, the health departments at the district and country levels should supervise the tobacco control activities in the areas under their jurisdiction, strengthen the law enforcement, warn the noncompliance units to rectify their wrongdoings within limited time and are entitled to impose 1,000 – 5,000 yuan of penalty on violated units and 10 yuan on infringed individuals.
“Smoking is injurious to health” is one of the most severe public health issues all over the current world. According to the statistics of the WHO, there are presently around 1.3 billion smokers all around the world, and around five million people die of diseases related to smoking each year.
The Report on Smoking Control by China in 2007 showed people who die of passive smoking exceed 1,00,000 each year in China. The “Global Teenager Smoking Survey” participated by China indicated that the hazard percentages for teenagers by secondhand smoking in home and in public places are 43.9% and 55.8% respectively. As of October 2006, total 154 countries or regions all over the world have promulgated provisions on no smoking in pubic places.
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