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Monday 4 May 2009

County officials demand more smoking for the good of the economy

Not over here, silly. In China.

Officials in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter million packs of locally made cigarettes annually to boost their economy or risk being fined.
The Gong'an county government in Hubei province has ordered its staff to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei-produced cigarette brands a year, the Global Times said.

Departments that fail to meet their targets will be fined, according to the report.

China has recently been attempting to appear more like the West in tackling smoking, but it looks like they have their work cut out if their local officials' ... err ... innovative method of boosting industry is anything to go by.

More than half of all male doctors in China smoke, but the government is now trying harder to get them to kick the habit in order to set an example for others, state media reported recently.

Yeah, right. Good luck with that, I reckon you might need it.

4 comments:

vincent1 said...

Dick, If that tactic WAS used over here, the antis would have had more success in reducing the smoking rates. Reverse Psychology, I think they call it. It would have probably worked for me anyway, I have never felt so militant or angry in my life. If they told us to smoke, and meant it, how many of us would have said F**K off. These antis are not good for any ones health, but it keeps them in well paid, work.
As it is, where the antis tread the smoking rates rise, they know this, we know this, the Governments have surely worked it out (not sure though) sometimes people are so smart, their logic stinks.
mandyv

Anonymous said...

Vincent1
You're totally right there. I'd gone down from 30 a day to about 8 a day by around 2004. I never wanted to give up - I enjoyed an occassional smoke and got used to smoking just a few.
Since the ban - a different story. After smoking a few for 3 years, I'm back up to 30 a day and I've put over a stone on since it - all because of pure anger as to how our parliament can treat their own citizens this way.

Karen said...

Same here! I was smoking around 8 a day, working hard in the garden, couple of beers in the pub 2 or 3 times a week. As July 1st loomed the fag count rose, peaking at over 20 a day.
On the other hand, the thousands of hours spent in front of this infernal machine now means those 20 are organically grown, filterless roll-ups so, despite the additional layers of fat, I still feel pretty healthy.
That just leaves the neglected garden and a non-existent pub life to fret about.

Unknown said...

Enough already! You surely made this up?

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