Since yesterday, Beijing has been implementing a new smoke-free law banning smoking in closed public spaces, especially in restaurants and offices.. Tobacco advertising will also be banned in outdoor spaces and public transport, as well as in most media. If the regulation, approved last year by the Beijing Municipal People's Congress standing committee, succeeds, Chinese authorities could enact a similar ban nationwide.
A significant reduction in smoking would undoubtedly result in clear public health benefits. But is it possible?
With over 300 million smokers, China accounts for one-third of all consumers in the world and accuses 2 deaths from smoking per day. The costs of treating smoking-related illnesses, not to mention productivity losses, are considerable.
But so far, most measures to reduce or ban smoking have met with little success. Despite having ratified the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, China has failed to deliver on its pledge to ban smoking in indoor public spaces from 2011. In addition, the production of cigarettes increased by 32%.
Smoking bans have been enacted in fourteen Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, but they have failed to reduce cigarette consumption, on the one hand, due to poor compliance with the law and, 'other, because the vast majority of Chinese adults 73% of them, feel that smoking does not pose serious risks (only 16% indicated that they wanted to quit).
In this context, the intention of the Beijing municipal authorities to impose a fine of 200 yuan (about 33 dollars) anyone who smokes in a public place seems a little derisory.
The obvious question is why the Chinese government, which does not hesitate to impose paternalistic policies in other areas, does not outright ban the production and consumption of cigarettes. Other countries and major cities, from Scandinavia to New York, have made smoking excessively expensive and illegal in most public places.
The reason why China does not follow this path is because of the jobs and income generated by this industry. The state quasi-monopoly, the China National Tobacco Corporation, sells virtually all cigarettes consumed in the country. It is in fact the world's largest producer, manufacturing 2,5 trillion cigarettes per year, with revenues amounting to 816 billion yuan (nearly 126 billion dollars), either 7 to 10% of Chinese GDP. Even in an authoritarian country like China, the loss of such income, not to mention the anger of 300 million smokers, makes prohibition exceedingly difficult.
AND THE ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE IN ALL CA?
However, there is an alternative that could help appease smokers and mitigate the loss of income associated with an outright ban on smoking: E-cigarette. Since it heats a liquid, containing nicotine and can be inhaled as an aerosol, users do not consume the carcinogenic tar of cigarette smoke, making the electronic cigarette an ideal nicotine substitute for smokers wanting to - or being forced - to reduce or quit smoking.
Besides being less harmful than cigarettes, electronic cigarettes are a locally produced product, invented in China in 2003. But despite the growth of the electronic cigarette industry in China - in 2013, the province of Shenzhen was home to more than 900 manufacturers of these devices, an increase of 200% since 2012, representing more than 95% of global production of e-cigarettes -, traditional cigarettes continue to dominate the Chinese market.
As Yangzhong Huang, Senior Global Health Research Fellow at the Council on External Relations, recently noted, “ if only 1% of Chinese smokers adopted electronic cigarettes, it would mean a market of 3,5 million electronic cigarette users ". The Chinese state monopoly could become the world's largest manufacturer of e-cigarettes.
One of the reasons why China has failed to take advantage of the enormous potential of e-cigarettes is the lack of adequate regulation. Low barriers to entry into the market encourage intense competition that squeezes profit margins for producers, and low-quality products abound due to insufficient manufacturing standards. In order for electronic cigarettes to replace tobacco cigarettes and offset the decline in associated revenues, the government must better regulate the e-cigarette industry to ensure its safety and quality.
But these efforts will yield little result without a change in the behavior of individuals. In this regard, the 2013 ban on smoking in public places or at official events imposed on Communist Party and government officials could help. As Huang explains, if more officials embrace e-cigarettes, ordinary citizens could follow suit.
It seems that the directors of the China National Tobacco Corporation have already complied with the government's smoking ban. That they have become “vapers” is however not documented.
The idea of a tobacco-free China, which will benefit from increased productivity and huge healthcare savings, may seem pipe-dream. But a nationwide smoking ban, along with the reliable (for smokers and their budget) alternative to e-cigarettes, is an exciting way to turn that dream into reality.
