Thailand Cigarette Warnings

Source: chinaSMACK

Cigarette warning are nothing new. Here's one from Canada:



However Thailand has taken it to a new extreme. Look at these!



That's pretty scary! Think people will quit? Probably not.

If I was the government I would put this on cigarette packages:

"Smoking takes inches off your dick".

Chinese ordered to smoke more to boost economy

Source: Daily Telegraph

Local government officials in China have been ordered to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packs of cigarettes in a move to boost the local economy during the global financial crisis.

he edict, issued by officials in Hubei province in central China, threatens to fine officials who "fail to meet their targets" or are caught smoking rival brands manufactured in neighbouring provinces.

Even local schools have been issued with a smoking quota for teachers, while one village was ordered to purchase 400 cartons of cigarettes a year for its officials, according to the local government's website.

The move, which flies in the face of national anti-smoking policies set in Beijing, is aimed at boosting tax revenues and protecting local manufacturers from outside competition from China's 100 cigarette makers.

In total, officials have been ordered to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei-branded cigarettes worth £400,000.

China's government has ordered massive government spending at both national and provincial levels to prop up the economy following plummeting demand for Chinese exports abroad, however imposing a cigarette quota is unusual.

"The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax," said Chen Nianzu, a member of the Gong'an cigarette market supervision team.

China has 350 million smokers, about a million of whom die each year from smoking-related illnesses. Despite anti-smoking campaigns, cigarette taxes form a major component of China's annual tax-take at local level.

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That's pretty crazy. The Chinese government has spent alot of money on educating people about smoking prevention. However local provinces don't care about that and want people to buy cigarettes. I wonder what Beijing will do about all this.

Japanese doctor apologises for smoking remark

Source: Yahoo!

A Japanese doctor has apologised after saying that people should smoke themselves to an early death to save the country money on elderly care, according to his hospital.

"It is clear that medical costs will increase if non-smoking spreads," the doctor said last week, according to Ida Hospital in Kawasaki City. "It's better that people smoke a lot and die early."

The man, whose name has been withheld, made the comment at a gathering of doctors, the hospital said.

"The hospital president has reprimanded him severely," said Tetsuya Yamamoto, a public relations official of the hospital.

"He said it was a careless remark and sincerely regrets it," the official said, adding that he was being sarcastic as the doctor is a smoker himself.

His comments angered activists.

"It was an outrageous remark that should not come from a doctor who is supposed to protect people's lives and health," Bungaku Watanabe, who heads an anti-smoking group, said in a statement.

If you listen to old radio show you will often hear ads for cigarettes and a line like "9 out of 10 doctors recommend XXXXXXXX for your smoking pleasure!"

But these days, you can't make statements like this. This is equivalent to:

"The country is poor because too many old people are living too long"
"The world is overpopulated because medical cures keep being invented"