China must declare war on tobacco

Christopher Columbus would have never imagined that, shortly after he introduced tobacco into Europe, it would become one of the main threats to health in several Latin American and Asian countries, as opium did in the 19th century, particularly in China.

Tobacco, one of the most addictive substances in the world, was introduced to China in the 1600s. By the end of the second opium war in 1860, not only was the import of opium legalised but cigarettes were allowed to be imported to China duty-free. By 1900, China was almost entirely permeated by foreign companies.

In 1929, Fritz Lickint, a German scientist from Dresden, published the first statistical evidence linking tobacco use and lung cancer. Yet, only in 1999 did the Philip Morris tobacco company acknowledge that, "There is an overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases."

Today, while its use has diminished considerably in industrialised countries, it is having a devastating effect on the health of the Chinese population.

As Dr Bernard Lown, a cardiologist and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, wrote in 1997: "The struggle against tobacco is not being won, it is being relocated."

The state-owned China National Tobacco Corporation, trading as China Tobacco, makes nearly all of China's tobacco products and dominates the global market. The company falls under the jurisdiction of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.