May 11, 2011

Give new smoking ban time, suggests China tobacco health expert Matthew Kohrman

Tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death in the world today, including in China where cigarette smoking is a popular pastime. "The [tobacco] industry in China is run by the Tobacco Monopoly Administration, a central government administrative body created in the 1980s, also known as China Tobacco Corp.," said Matthew Kohrman in a February 2011 interview with NPR's Morning Edition. China nonetheless issued a nationwide indoor smoking ban on May 1. Speaking with Al Jazeera English on the first day of the ban, Kohrman predicted that Chinese citizens will increasingly comply with the ban even if in fits and starts initially. "It all has to do with implementation," he suggested. "It all has to do with changing the culture of smoking and people’s thinking about it—that takes time."

• » NPR: China dependent on tobacco in more ways than one
• » Al Jazeera English: China starts national ban on indoor cigarette smoking