No 1 for tobacco use

As the world's largest tobacco products producer and consumer, one out of every three cigarettes consumed worldwide is smoked in China.

In total, the country has more than 300 million regular smokers, about 28.1 percent of the adult population, including half of its adult males and 2.4 percent of its women, according to the 2010 Global Adult Tobacco Survey report released by World Health Organization.

As a result, about 1 million people die every year because of tobacco use, around one in six of all such deaths worldwide.

And more than 700 million people are routinely exposed to second-hand smoke, which causes approximately 100,000 deaths every year.

That means that every 30 seconds a person dies in China because of tobacco use, around 3,000 people every day.

If tobacco use in the country is not curtailed, China's death toll will rise to 3 million a year by 2050, according to WHO.

Even though China became a signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as early as 2003, which meant it was required to ban smoking in public areas, reduce tobacco supplies and consumption, and prohibit all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship when it became effective in 2006, the draft law now being considered is the first such national legislation in China. Moreover, there is no provincial law on tobacco control in most provinces in China, except in two municipalities - Beijing and Shanghai.

At the city level, among hundreds of cities, only 10 have related laws, such as Shenzhen in Guangdong province, and Lanzhou in Gansu province, according to Xu.

That is to say, only about 10 percent of Chinese people live in areas that have tobacco-control laws, Xu said.

The country's efforts to control tobacco use have been hampered by a number of obstacles, including the public's low awareness of the risks of tobacco use and the dangers of exposure to second-hand smoking.

"People may have a vague impression that smoking is bad for their health, but most people have no idea of how bad it can be," says Jiang Yuan, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention's tobacco control office, adding tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke are significant preventable risk factors to many illnesses, including heart disease, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cancer.

Studies show that half of all regular smokers will die prematurely because of tobacco use. In the United States and Europe, more than 80 percent of people know smoking and second-hand smoking cause diseases, but only 23.2 percent of Chinese adults believe smoking can lead to strokes, heart attacks and lung cancer. Only 24.6 percent of adults believe exposure to second-hand smoke causes heart disease and lung cancer in adults.

In rural areas, health awareness is even lower, Jiang added.

Wang Xiaohong, a respiratory-disease specialist with Peking University Third Hospital, said she is astonished that in hospitals, a lot of the medical staff smoke, ignoring all that they've learned in medical schools.

"Even if people know about the health risks, many consider that they are something far away in the future, and so should not prevent them from enjoying the habit now," says Wang, who also works as a stop-smoking therapist in the prestigious hospital.