Please Remove the Ashes from the Incision

Mark Twain once said, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”  If that’s true, then maybe there is hope for China.  The world’s most populous nation is also the world’s largest cigarette producer.  While they export some, most of that is for the homegrown market of 350 million smokers.

In an effort to curb smoking, Chinese officials will ban smoking in all hospitals and medical facilities starting in 2011.  It is unclear whether the new policy is mandatory.  However, the Health Ministry stated, “Workers must give up smoking, not smoke in their workplace or public areas (and) promote knowledge about the harm tobacco causes,” it added.

About 56.8% of male doctors in China smoke, the highest such rate in the world, the China Daily newspaper said in March, citing the China Preventive Medicine Association (CPMA).  I can’t imagine where they got the idea that smoking and the Hippocratic Oath were compatible– it couldn’t have been from the capitalist West.

Hopefully the ban works.  A report published in Britain’s The Lancet medical journal late last year said “if present smoking rates continue, 100 million Chinese men will die between 2000 and 2050″ of tobacco-related diseases.

At least they seem to be appealing to women’s since of vanity when pitching them to kick the habit.  Smoking = premature aging.