Call for ban on tobacco firms’ charitable aid
Print Edition
ANTI-SMOKING campaigners said recently that the draft charity law should ban tobacco companies from sponsoring all forms of charitable activities.
A draft of the first charity law was published online by the top legislature last week to solicit public opinions. While lauding the stipulations forbidding tobacco promotion, there are calls for tougher restrictions.
According to the draft, organizations and individuals should not seek to promote tobacco products or tobacco firms through the act of charitable donations.
Lawyer Li Enze said that this clause falls short as charitable activities take various forms including free clinics or fundraising, which are not included in the provision.
Yu Xiuyan, researcher with China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, said the draft lacks any explicit description of the legal responsibility for violators.
Health hazards
Wu Yiqun, vice director of the Beijing-based anti-smoking advocacy group ThinkTank, said the law should ban all kinds of charitable activities involving the tobacco industry and include legally accountability for law breakers.
“We should single out the tobacco industry ... considering the health hazards of smoking. Companies should be banned from promoting cigarettes in the name of charity,” he said.
“Charity is a cause for the betterment of society and wellbeing of people, while tobacco, which is intrinsically bad, goes against the very nature of this.”
Many tobacco companies have been trying to gain market exposure by associating themselves with charity work, which is more detrimental to society than tobacco advertisements and can be especially misleading to young people, Wu said.
According to the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control, from November last year to February of this, there were 89 cases of tobacco sponsorship in China.
Cui Xiaobo, a professor at the Capital Medical University in Beijing, said the tobacco industry is a major financier that the government turns to for support coping with disasters such as earthquake and fires.
“Will it be a loss for society if the companies are not allowed to donate?” he said.
Angela Pratt, head of the Tobacco Free Initiative at World Health Organization China office, suggested the government raise tobacco industry taxes and invest the money in public welfare.
China signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003, which requires all signatories to “comprehensively ban all tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship.”
Having a ban on tobacco sponsorship in the charity law is in line with the spirit of the convention, Wu said, adding that it is important for the country to promote its anti-smoking campaign through legislation.
In April, China’s top legislature adopted an amendment to the Advertisement Law forbidding tobacco advertisement across mass media, public places, public vehicles and outdoors. The new rules were enacted in September.
China is the world’s largest tobacco maker and consumer, with more than 300 million smokers — almost the population of the United States.
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