Call for complete ban on tobacco adverts
Print Edition
HEALTH professionals and tobacco control experts in China have called for tobacco advertising to be outlawed as the draft amendment to the Advertising Law failed to stipulate the ban explicitly.
At a conference in Beijing yesterday, campaign organizers read a letter drafted to the national legislative body, calling for a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising.
Scholars, health and legal professionals and tobacco control experts signed the letter.
The draft amendment was reviewed at an executive meeting of the State Council chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday, and will be submitted to the legislative body after further revisions.
According to the draft, tobacco advertisements will be banned from radio, movies, television, videos, newspapers, journals, books, electronic publications, mobile communication networks and the Internet.
They are also banned in waiting rooms, theaters, meeting halls, gymnasiums and stadiums, libraries, cultural halls, parks, hospitals, schools, and on public transport.
Liang Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the wording has its loopholes, which may be used by tobacco companies.
“The Children’s Palace, for example, is not included, but obviously tobacco advertising there is inappropriate and should be banned,” he said.
A Children’s Palace is an educational facility where children go to pursue extracurricular activities.
Pledge broken
China signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2003 and it became effective in 2006.
It requires signatories to “comprehensively ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.”
However, the current Advertising Law, effective since 1995, does not include such a ban, which should be stipulated in the amendment, Liang said.
The amendment, however, failed to “comprehensively” cover “all” advertising of any kind, as required by the FCTC, he said.
Wu Yiqun, deputy director of Beijing-based non-government organization ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development, said tobacco advertising has a huge negative psychological impact on the public, and especially teenagers.
According to a report released by the China CDC on May 28, almost 7 percent of junior school students said they were smokers and more than 48 percent of students between 13 and 15 years old said they had seen a tobacco advertisement in the previous month.
In a survey conducted of children aged 5 and 6 in six countries, 85 percent of Chinese youngsters were able to identify at least one cigarette brand.
The result ranked China first of the six countries, which also comprised Russia, India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Brazil.
“It took 20 years before the Advertising Law was amended, and it might take another 20 years if we fail to include an explicit tobacco advertising ban in the law this time,” Wu said.
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