Chinese Officials Ordered To Smoke 230,000 Packs Of Cigs

Published by djmick on May 4th, 2009

chinese women smoking

There isn’t a day goes by when you don’t read or hear about the latest medical evidence that smoking kills and how anyone silly enough to puff away on cigarettes is a dead man walking.

Well if you are one of those people tired of people telling you how bad smoking is for your health you’ll be pretty envious of government employees in Hubei province, central China.

Local government officials in Hubei 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.

Yes, you did read that last paragraph correctly. The local government has issued a smoking quota to local workers.

chinese woman smoking

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.

This smoking scheme is aimed at boosting tax revenues and protecting local manufacturers from outside competition from China’s 100 cigarette makers.

Apparently the move is a complete contradiction of national anti-smoking policies set in Beijing.

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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