Olympic organizers are planning a smoke-free Games in Beijing next year. It will not be easy. Legislation imposing strict curbs on tobacco use at Olympic sites is in place but enforcing them will be another matter.

Zhang Jianshu, head of the Beijing Health Bureau’s publicity department said, ‘We have been in final talks with the International Olympic Committee and other groups to fine-tune draft regulations.’

It was easier in, say, Australia where smoking had been banned for some time before the Olympic Games and smoking was on the downturn. That is not the situation in China. Some 400 million smokers are free to light up at will in most public places in the country.

Yang Jie, who works with the anti-smoking program at China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, ‘We are very much at the beginning stage of the battle against tobacco in China and a smoke-free Olympics will hopefully help us get the message out.’

The problem is two fold. First of all a large percentage of the people smoke. The second is the tobacco industry is owned by the government and makes serious profits.

Zhang Baozhen, a senior official in the state-run tobacco industry, said riots erupted when the former Soviet Union collapsed because smokers could no longer get cigarettes. ‘The dangers of smoking are there, but a smoking ban could cause instability,’ he was quoted as saying in the Chinese media.

Tobacco is a government-run 160 billion dollar-a-year business that employs some 60 million people in productions, supply and sales. It netted $31 billion in taxes for the government in 2005, enough to pay for the running costs of the Beijing Olympics 15 times over.

But smoking also kills some one million Chinese a year and incurs five billion dollars in annual medical bills.

The new regulations will include bans in all of the 37 Olympic competition sites and dozens of other training sites during the August 8-24 Games next year. The ban will spread to other areas including the Olympic village, designated Olympic hotels, restaurants, and entertainment areas.

Whether the ban can be enforced without confrontation is another matter.
Source: Khaleej Times