Changes eyed to Beijing indoor smoking ban set bad example, WHO says

Beijing legislators will have a second reading of a controversial tobacco control law today, which, if passed, would set a bad precedent for other mainland cities and set back the nation's anti-smoking efforts, the World Health Organisation's representative in China says.

"It would be a great shame - and a tremendous waste of life - if Beijing's leaders let special interests derail progress toward passage of a law that institutes a comprehensive ban on indoor public smoking," said Dr Bernhard Schwartlander, the World Health Organisation's representative in China.

The municipal government proposed in April to revise the city's smoking control restrictions from "densely populated areas" to all indoor public spaces, a move widely hailed at the time by tobacco control advocates as significant progress.

Yet the wording dramatically changed in July, after the first reading by the city's legislature, a move advocates described as backpedalling.

The capital's legislature concluded the regulation was ambiguous and redefined the clause on offices.

The new draft changes the smoking ban in "public areas, indoor areas of offices and public transport" to "public spaces, shared indoor areas of offices and public transport". Hotels and airports can set aside smoking rooms that have separate ventilation systems.

Schwartlander said the revised law would exempt offices with a single occupant, expose staff who had to enter those offices or work nearby to second-hand smoke, a problem even closed doors and good ventilation could not prevent entirely.