'Safe level' of smoking a myth: experts
Updated: 2008-04-01 10:19
"Therefore, low-tar cigarettes are invented by tobacco producers to have smokers let down their guard against the harmful effects of tobacco and allure them to continue smoking," Wu said.
Though China's first low-tar cigarette appeared in 1976, more than a decade later than the ones in the US, the low-tar fallacy is spreading fast and wide. Even many doctors believe in the low-tar cigarettes, health experts said.
"This is partly because tobacco producers have kept telling smokers that they are using high-technology to reduce the harm of tar some even print 'herbal' on the package," said Yang Gonghuan, professor and deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
An earlier study by an international tobacco-control program in 2006 has also found that the country ranked top among 14 countries and regions with the highest percentage of wrong ideas about low-tar cigarettes.
There are reportedly 350 million smokers in China. About 1 million people die each year because of smoking-related diseases, such as lung cancer.
According to a WHO forecast, 1 billion people will be dead worldwide within the 21st century because of tobacco -- if there is no urgent action taken to remedy the health threat -- and the average annual death toll in China from cigarettes will be 3 million, up from the current 1 million.
Faced with such challenges, the government has strengthened efforts to ban smoking by joining the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005 and banning words such as "light" and "mild" on cigarette packages, among other measures.
The country also needs to open more clinics to help smokers kick the habit, said anti-smoking activist Gregory Ying-nien Tsang.
"China is paying more and more attention to controlling smoking. I attended more than a dozen activities last year that promote smoking bans," Zhi added.
"But more needs to be done to let people know that low-tar cigarettes are fatal, too. There is no 'safe level' of smoking," he said.
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