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World Media Stunned by Tobacco Sponsorship of Chinese Schools

CNN focuses on the "dysfunction in this whole system"

Posted by: Editor | Oct 5, 2011

World Media Stunned by Tobacco Sponsorship of Chinese Schools
CNN focuses on the "dysfunction in this whole system"  

Spurred by reports that the Chinese National Tobacco Corporation is sponsoring at least 100 elementary schools — promoting their brands and logos among children — CNN interviewed Dr. Judith Mackay of the World Lung Foundation on the role the state-owned company plays in fostering the tobacco epidemic in China.

"Within China, the tobacco company itself is in charge of things like health warnings, it's in charge of things like policing some of the advertising, and so on," Mackay told CNN. "So I mean there's clearly a great sort of mismatch, a dysfunction in this whole system."

Watch the interview:  

Bloomberg Businessweek also reports that China's efforts to reduce tobacco sales, including a ban on smoking in public places, have been "hampered by light penalties, a lack of education about the dangers of smoking and the fact that the regulator, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, also runs the world's biggest cigarette maker."

The China National Tobacco Company holds 98 percent of the Chinese market, and sold more than 2.1 trillion cigarettes in 2008.  If current smoking trends continue, China's death toll from tobacco will reach 2 million per year by 2020.