Stubbing Out the Cigarette

By staff reporter SU LI

China has rolled out laws, policies, and programs to reduce the use of tobacco, and achieved marked results over the past decades.

（3）手动切换测试：通过FPGA的按键进行工作CPU的切换，并且保证输出数据的连续性，体现在FPGA系统的LCD上能看到当前工作的CPU发生变化，并且计数显示连续进行。

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco kills more than eight million people every year.

图3(a)是氧化石墨烯的透射电镜图。从图中很明显地看到GO的结构是片状的。(b)图是高倍率下的TEM，能够看出GO没有晶格存在，其插图的电子衍射是环形的，这说明GO的结构是无定型的。图3(c)是经远红外光波处理4 min后得到的还原氧化石墨烯的透射电镜图，能够发现，还原氧化石墨烯的片层大小是几平方微米，其表面有褶皱和小孔，有利于离子的运输[25]。其高倍率下的电镜图(图d)显示了单层结构的石墨烯，插图也能明显地看到六方晶格。

OLD Chen took a drag on his cigarette, watching his three-year-old granddaughter woddle around in a small park in western Beijing.Whenever the toddler came near, he would stretch out his hand holding the cigarette as far away from her as possible.Still,the smell of smoke was perceptible even at arm’s length.“Smoking is no good, my wife complains about it every day,”he acknowledged.“But I am too old to quit,”he said,giving a familiar excuse.Like many men of his generation,the 67-year-old first picked up the nicotine habit from his peers, fellow factory workers in his case.He has noticed that fewer people of his age are smoking today.“Smoking is no good,”he reiterated.

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco kills more than eight million people every year.More than seven million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use, while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.China is the largest tobacco producer and consumer in the world, with 350 million smokers, according to a 2022 report on the health damage caused by smoking.A 2018 survey on tobacco use among Chinese adults found that 26.6 percent of people aged above 16 had picked up the habit.The rate was 50.5 percent for men, 2.1 percent for women, 28.9 percent in rural areas, and 25.1 percent in the city.Though these numbers have been on a slow but steady decline over the past several years, they remain alarmingly high.

In November 2020, the 13th National People’s Congress,China’s top legislature, adopted the revised Law on the Protection of Minors, which entered into effect on June 1,2021, the International Children’s Day.With new additions on tobacco control, the legislation was lauded as “a milestone event”by the vice chairman of Chinese Association on Tobacco Control Tong Lihua.The earlier version of this law included an article saying that businesses are subject to administrative penalties if they sell alcohol and tobacco products to under-age people, or do not set up prominent signs banning sales of these products to this group of people on their premises.But the law didn’t specify how much the penalties would be or how to execute them.It was therefore deemed “toothless.”The revised law makes it clear that violators could face a fine below RMB 500,000 or even have their business licenses revoked.

The national capital, for instance, launched the Healthy Beijing – Support for Quitting Smoking campaign in 2017,extending support services to thousands of people through healthcare facilities, hotlines, and online platforms.Data over the past years show that more than half (52 percent)of the people who visited cessation clinics successfully stopped smoking within three months.

An art performance by volunteers from the Liulinqiao Subdistrict of Handan City, Hebei Province on May 30, 2022, promotes smoking-free awareness.

New technologies are providing fresh ammunition to the combat against tobacco use.In May 2021, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention launched a national online platform in partnership with WHO’s China office to help smokers kick the habit.Accessible on both the center’s website and the popular social media app We-Chat, the platform pools together information of various smoking cessation facilities, services, and other resources in all the 31 provincial-level administrative regions on China’s mainland, and offers customized guidance for people who want to quit cigarettes.By putting in the intensity of tobacco use and other personal data, one is presented with a detailed schedule to gradually break the habit, and even receive prompts for them to meet daily targets.

文化自信的培养绝非一朝一夕就能够完成。高中思想政治课教学并非培养学生文化自信的唯一途径。第四单元文化自信框题进行的是对概念本身的教育，真正培养学生文化自信还需贯穿在整本书的教学中。有些老师依托学案和理论进行讲解，导致教学中依旧以教师为主导，讲授内容与实际生活脱节，缺少实践性，这恰恰违背了高中政治作为一门活动型学科课程的初衷。正如书中第一单元所提到的那样，“每个人的文化素养不是天生的，而是通过对社会生活的体验，特别是通过参与文化生活、接受文化知识教育而逐步培养出来的”。〔2〕产生文化自信的前提是创造并发展文化。

Advances in medical science during the following centuries led to better understanding of the perils of tobacco use, and governments across the world, including in China,began to take action against it.In 1991 the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, adopted the first national law on tobacco – The Law of the People’s Republic on Tobacco Monopoly, which came into force on January 1 of the following year.It includes an article stipulating that the state shall strengthen public education on the harm of smoking, prohibit or limit smoking on public transport vehicles and in public spaces, dissuade young people from smoking, and ban it among primary and middle school students.

A 2021 study by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that 16.7 percent of middle school students in China had tried smoking, with the rate being 23.2 percent for boys and 9.5 percent for girls.These figures were however slightly lower than two years before, by 1.2 percentage points for the whole group and 2.8 percentage points for male students.

随着社会的不断发展，为适应新时代社会的发展，要求学生全面提高素质能力，对学生增加了学业的压力，每个学校都以成绩制定门槛，只有取得好成绩，学生才能走进理想的大学，在严肃的教育下，无形地增加了学生的学习压力。与此同时，还有很多家长及教师，对自己的孩子以及学生有着更高的期盼，从而对青少年苛刻要求，使学生在心理上产生了极大的负担，使其不能灵活面对问题，长此以往，抑制了青少年发挥自身的个性特点，产生了影响学生成长的心理问题，例如抑郁、过度紧张等。

These efforts are paying off.Surveys show that the share of smokers in the Chinese population aged above 15 had fallen from 33.9 percent in 1984 to 26.6 percent in 2018, and then dropped further to 25.8 percent in 2020.China plans to reduce this rate to 20 percent by 2030.A factor crucial for realizing this goal is to prevent the young generation from picking up the bad habit in the first place.

In the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), snuff became popular among the upper class, including the royal family.Its prevalence even gave rise to the art of inside-painted snuff bottles, which is now an intangible cultural heritage item of Beijing.In 1897, when Emperor Guangxu was on the throne, cigarettes entered China, brought into Shanghai by an American retailer.

三是可能会导致惠农资金的减少。除了上文提到的产粮大省(县)奖励资金以外，现行的一些农业奖励政策和办法，如农业支持保护补贴政策等，均是以粮食生产面积或产量作为测算依据的，如果仅调整粮食统计口径，而不相应调整相应奖补政策的测算方法，就会直接导致惠农资金的减少，从而影响地方政府和种粮农民利益。

Knowledgeable Chinese had realized the harm of smoking to human health soon after the appearance of tobacco in China.Wu Li Xiao Shimentioned that long consumption of the plant would cause lung damage, for which there was no medication, and that it would lead to sudden death after the patient began vomiting yellowish liquid.Some Ming and Qing doctors classified tobacco as a poisonous weed.

In March 2022, the Institute of Law under Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released the Report of Legislative Progress in Tobacco Control.It said that all the four municipalities directly under the central government – Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing – and 22 of the 27 provincial capitals on the mainland had promulgated specific tobacco control statutes.By 2021, about 600 smoking cessation clinics had opened across the country, and 30 provincial-level regions had launched support hotlines.

In May 2003, the 56th World Health Assembly adopted the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the first international pact on tobacco control.China ratified it in 2005, and the treaty came into legal force in the country in 2006.In its spirit, the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Shanghai passed the Regulations on Smoking Restrictions in Public Spaces in 2009, the first provincial-level legislation of its kind on the mainland.In 2011, the Ministry of Public Health released the revised rules for the implementation of the Regulations on Hygiene Management in Public Places, introducing a smoking ban in indoor public spaces.Two years later the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued a circular requiring leading officials to take the lead in stopping smoking in public spaces.It also prohibits the use of cigarette products during official activities, and their use, sales and provision in office buildings of Party and government agencies.

It is believed that tobacco growing in the Americas was first brought into China’s coastal region Fujian in the 16th century during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), through the Luzon Island.It was soon planted domestically, and sold across the country.According toWu Li Xiao Shi(Small Encyclopaedia of the Principle of Things), a collection of science essays dated 1643 by Fang Yizhi,“Danbagu (based on the Spanish word for tobacco) was brought into Zhangzhou and Quanzhou (in today’s Fujian Province) at the end of the Wanli period (1573-1620)...and gradually spread to the nine frontier military bases...It was consumed by lighting up a long pipe...A ban was imposed on the plant during the reign of Emperor Chongzhen (1628-1644), but with little effect.”

It is also the first law prohibiting sales of e-cigarettes to minors.Coming in various designs and flavors and promoted by certain Internet celebrities, e-cigarettes are gaining popularity among teens and young people.In 2021,the Health Communication Institute of Fudan University conducted a research on 2,405 young students in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu, three of the most populous cities in China.It found that as many as 94.3 percent of the respondents had heard of e-cigarettes, and 4.5 percent had used them.The age of first use is between 10 and 15.A third of the respondents had seen e-cigarette advertisements during the past month.

式中,γc为耦合系数；为距离爆心的比例距离；n为衰减指数，一般对于50 GPa以上的强冲击区n≈3.0，在5～20 GPa的过渡压力区，n≈1.4～1.8，在固体弹塑性变形区，n≈1.1～1.2。

To tackle this problem, relevant authorities are taking multi-pronged measures, including the creation of a monitoring system for tobacco use among teens and young people, tightening e-cigarettes regulations, increasing public education, encouraging society-wide participation, and organizing dedicated campaigns.

For many decades, smoking has been a mechanism to maintain and strengthen kinship bonds and social relationships and to enhance a sense of belonging.Cigarettes are still offered at wedding banquets across China and exchanged as gifts by many people.A token of sophistication and masculinity, they were widely seen in earlier movies and TV dramas in the mouths of soldiers in the lull between combats, farmers toiling in crop fields or scholars burning the midnight oil.This has changed after regulations were introduced to ban smoking scenes and cigaretterelated content on the screen.

But to address a problem associated with cultural norms and social etiquettes, it takes extensive, persistent efforts in all aspects of society over an extended period of time.After decades of public education and government action, this issue has gained broader attention and greater traction.It was again raised in many proposals and suggestions by law makers and political advisors at this year’s “two sessions.”On tobacco control, China is moving in the right direction,and is seeing encouraging results

But to address a problem associated with cultural norms and social etiquettes, it takes extensive, persistent efforts in all aspects of society over an extended period of time.

A notice displayed at an e-cigarette store in Nanchang shows the national ban on sales of such products to minors.