Famous experts acclaim “Regulations on Smoking Control in Public Places”

Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council of China publicized “Regulations on Smoking Control in Public Places (manuscript)”on 24 November, 2014 and opened door for the whole society to collect advice. As the first national regulation on smoking control in public places, the manuscript attracts attention from all of fields. In the regulation, the scope of tobacco control in public health is expanded. In addition to prohibiting to smoke in all the indoor public places, the regulation stipulates that smoking is banned in the outdoor public places where juvenile is major population, outdoor education area in universities, outdoor area in care institution for maternity and child health, children ’s hospital, and maternity hospital, outdoor spectators and playing areas of stadium, and outdoor waiting area of public transport.  

On December 12, Chinese Association on Tobacco Control (CATC) held a forum focusing on the regulation. Many experts serving in the fields of public health, medical treatment and legal profession, professional people focusing on youngsters health, and famous stars were invited to participate in the forum and discussed the new regulation.

In 2003, 192 member states passed the The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 56th World Health Assembly. The convention definitely points out that tobacco smoke could result in many diseases and thus all the countries should exert policy and law methods to prevent public from hazard of tobacco smoke. In 9 January 2006, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was ratified by the National People’s Congress and successfully took effect. During the past 9 years, although Chinese government had introduced relevant legislation in some cities, but the implementation is not satisfactory. It has been a hot topic to urge Chinese government to draft regulation on tobacco control. Some non-government organization and experts on tobacco control has been strongly criticizing tobacco advertisement, tobacco promotion and sponsorship from tobacco enterprises, and too low tobacco tax and price, and strongly condemned government’s sluggish legislation to respond to these problems.

Many experts, scholars, and sports stars participated in the forum and expressed their views and ideas about the regulation. The participants is as follow: Guihua Xu (Executive Vice President and Secretary General of CATC), Dayi Hu (vice president of CATC, the head of Cardiovascular Research Institute of Peking University People’s Hospital, directer of Department of Cardiology, famous experts on cardiovascular), Zhengzhong Xu (professor of China National School of Administration),Jie Yang (research professorship at Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention ), Xiuyi Zhi (directer of Lung Cancer Diagnosis Center of Xuan Wu Hospital ), Fengrong Zheng ( Chinese female high jumper firstly breaking world record ) and so on. In the forum, participants expressed they were excited to see the regulation and acclaimed the exciting measures. They agree that the regulation is a milestone in the long way of Chinese tobacco control and must promote and accelerate Chinese government implement the convention. If the regulation could be comprehensively and effectively carried out, it would protect people from hazard of tobacco and smoke with maximum, improve Chinese citizen’s life quality, and has a far-reaching influence on Chinese economy sustainable development.