Asia's rising tobacco epidemic

Yahoo – AFP, Giles Hewitt, 18 Sep 2014

Three elderly men take a cigarette break, in Shanghai, on March 22, 2012

(AFP Photo/Peter Parks)

Smoke-filled bars and packed cancer wards reflect decades of neglect of no-smoking policies in Asia, where both high- and low-income countries are belatedly waking up to a growing tobacco-related health epidemic.

Researchers say inadequate public awareness of smoking risks, coupled with aggressive tobacco marketing, has left Asian nations with some of the highest smoking rates in the world at a time when sustained anti-smoking campaigns have lowered rates in the US and parts of Europe.

Roughly 60 percent of the world's population lives in Asia, where "tobacco control programmes are less well-developed, particularly in low- and middle-income countries like China and India", said a major regional study published April in PLOS Medicine.

An Indian Hindu Sadhu smokes near a
temple in Pushkar, on November 5, 2011
(AFP Photo/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)

In developed countries like Japan and South Korea, it is only recently that the authorities have made genuine moves to cut smoking rates that were once as high as 85 percent among adult males.

European countries have spearheaded raising taxes on tobacco -- backed by the World Health Organisation as the most cost-effective way to curb smoking. But Asian countries have been slow to follow suit.

'Biggest threat'

Last week, however, the South Korean government proposed a massive 80 percent increase in cigarette prices.

In a country where 44 percent of the male population smokes, Health Minister Moon Hyung-Pyo said the time had come to grapple seriously with the "biggest threat to national health".

Opposition critics criticised what they saw as a desperate bid to raise tax revenues to fund a growing welfare bill and said the move would hit low-income earners the hardest.

"Smoking was long regarded as a way for hard-working Korean men to counter the stress of the country's rapid industrialisation," said Kim Jin-Young, a sociology professor at Korea University.

"Governments were very wary of raising taxes on cigarettes and alcohol for fear of an electoral backlash," Kim told AFP.

"But the public perception is changing now, with people putting more of an emphasis on public health than before," he added.

The South Korean tobacco market is estimated to be worth around $9.0 billion a year.

In April, state health insurers filed a lawsuit against three domestic and foreign tobacco makers, seeking damages of 53.7 billion won for payouts over tobacco-related illnesses.

A local resident lights his cigarette with one borrowed from a North Korean 

soldier patrolling the banks of the Yalu River, in Sinuiju, across the river from

 Dandong in northeast China's Liaoning province, on October 24, 2006 (AFP

Photo/Frederic J. Brown)

They claimed to have spent about 1.7 trillion won each year to help treat diseases caused by smoking.

In Japan, where more than 30 percent of men smoke, the government raised taxes on cigarettes in June -- the first increase for 17 years.

"Japan's smoking rate is really a legacy of the wartime national policy of promoting smoking as a source of national budget," said Hiroshi Yamato, a doctor and smoking expert at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in Kitakyushu, western Japan.

The tobacco industry was a state monopoly until 1985 when it was privatised as Japan Tobacco, which still controls more than 60 percent of the market and wields substantial political influence.

"Japan is still way behind in terms of anti-smoking policies especially measures against secondhand smoke," said Yamato.

"You can still smoke in a lot of public places in Japan such as office buildings, coffee shops, restaurants and bars," he added.

South Korea only banned smoking in public places in July 2013, with small restaurants and bars exempted until 2015.

Too little, too late?

Although global smoking rates have fallen, more people smoke worldwide today than in 1980, mainly due to population surges in countries like China and India.

People are seen at a designated smoking

area on a street in Tokyo, on May 31, 2013

(AFP Photo/Toru Yamanaka)

China had nearly 100 million more smokers in 2012 than it had three decades ago, even though its smoking rate fell from 30 to 24 percent in that time, according to data published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

China has close to 300 million smokers, and efforts to ban smoking in public areas have suffered from lax enforcement.

Tobacco use is linked to 1.2 million deaths a year in China and around one million in India, and studies suggest the toll is going to increase exponentially.

A paper published in the British Medical Journal this year said China risked accumulating 50 million tobacco deaths between 2012 and 2050.

And because of the long latency of diseases associated with smoking, the full impact of decades of laissez-faire policies has yet to be felt.

"Many Asian countries are in the early stages of the tobacco epidemic," said the PLOS Medicine study.

"So it is likely that the burden of diseases caused by tobacco smoking will continue to rise over the next few decades, and much longer if the tobacco epidemic remains unchecked," it said.

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. ...”