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BEIJING – China's addiction to huge revenues from its state-owned tobacco monopoly is hindering anti-smoking measures, potentially costing millions of lives in the country with the world's largest number of smokers, experts warned Thursday.
The health and other costs of smoking already exceed the tobacco industry's economic contributions by at least $9 billion, said a report prepared by a group of prominent Chinese public health experts and economists.
If trends continue, by 2030 an estimated 3.5 million Chinese will die from smoking each year — three times the current level, it said, citing China's failure to take basic measures such as passing a national law to ban smoking in indoor public places and raising the price of cigarettes.
The analysis underscores increasing concerns that the government is jeopardizing the country's economic potential by refusing to take serious action to combat a widespread problem that escalates medical costs and hurts productivity.
Political will is lacking because China's leaders often consider only the short-term benefits, according to Teh-wei Hu, a health economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has advised the government to raise cigarette prices.
The health and other costs of smoking already exceed the tobacco industry's economic contributions by at least $9 billion, said a report prepared by a group of prominent Chinese public health experts and economists.
If trends continue, by 2030 an estimated 3.5 million Chinese will die from smoking each year — three times the current level, it said, citing China's failure to take basic measures such as passing a national law to ban smoking in indoor public places and raising the price of cigarettes.
The analysis underscores increasing concerns that the government is jeopardizing the country's economic potential by refusing to take serious action to combat a widespread problem that escalates medical costs and hurts productivity.
Political will is lacking because China's leaders often consider only the short-term benefits, according to Teh-wei Hu, a health economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has advised the government to raise cigarette prices.
