Smoking: 5 reasons why most Chinese smokers will not quit

Despite the popular advert on smoking cigarette that says 'smokers are
liable to die young' the trend is increasing everyday throughout the
world, and most especially in China.

According to report, China is consuming one out of three cigarette
produced in the world. And, this is becoming a serious health issue to
the Chinese people.

According to report from a new study that examines the devastating
toll of rising smoking rates on China's male population, smoking
deaths in China are set to triple to 3 million a year by 2050, if
urgent attention is not taking.

Report from the United States of America shows that smoking could be a
leading cause of death if care is not taking. According to the Center
for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking causes one in five deaths
in the United States each year.

Imagine a whole 3 million people dying yearly in a single country from
smoking!!!

smoking
The report which was published in the British medical journal The
Lancet, reveals that nearly two thirds of young Chinese men pick up
smoking and at least half of them will die from the habit, if they
don't quit before it affects their health.

Scientists from Oxford University, the Chinese Academy of Medical
Sciences and the Chinese Center for Disease Control decided to
determine how harmful is smoking to the health of an average Chinese
smokers. They tracked the health effects of smoking over time in two
large, geographically diverse studies. Their study revealed that
cigarette consumption has grown substantially for men in both urban
and rural China over the last few decades while rates fell for women.

Accordingly, they found that urban males who started smoking before
they turned 20 had twice the mortality rate of non-smokers, with
substantially increased rates of death from smoking-linked pulmonary
disease, lung cancer, heart disease and stroke.

According to the scientists, the first generation of men to experience
the full hazards of smoking will probably be those born during the
1970s or 1980s.

Happily, smoking rate or trend in the USA is direct opposite of that
of China which shows that smoking trend in China can be changed. For
instance, smoking rates in the United States are less than half what
they were 50 years ago.

China now consumes a third of the world's cigarettes. And, China
government will not be able to do much about stopping Chinese from
smoking for five reasons.

FIVE REASONS IT WILL BE HARD TO STOP CHINESE FROM SMOKING

1. According to the Tobacco Atlas, 26% of the price of a packet of
cigarettes is tax, compared with a WHO benchmark of 75%. Which means
income from tobacco sales and taxes are major sources of government
revenue in China. This make it difficult to really open the eyes of
smokers to public health implications of their habit.

2. Another reason it will be difficult to stop Chinese from smoking is
that there is this common myths about smoking. One of which is the
belief that
protective biological mechanisms specific to Asian populations make
smoking less hazardous to them.

3. They believe that it is easy to quit smoking

4. They believed that tobacco use is an intrinsic and ancient part of
Chinese culture.

5. Another reason it will be hard for increasing smoking trend in
China to reverse is that most smokers are ignorant about the danger of
smoking to their health and that of the public. According to a survey
from the World Health Organization, knowledge about the dangers of
smoking is still a long way
to go in China because half of adults questioned did not know that
smoking can cause strokes or heart disease. Also, more than one in ten
people did not know second hand smoke can cause lung disease in
children.

It is advisable for government of China and Chinese people, both
smokers and non-smokers to take the health implication of smoking
seriously before is too late. I want to also suggest that they find
herbs or drugs that can neutralize the effect of smoking from the
body.