By Dr Bernhard Schwartländer, WHO Representative in China
June was a great month in Beijing. The weather has been warm, the flowers in full bloom, and there were plenty of crystal clear days outside – with blue sky and lovely white clouds. I’ve loved being out and about, just soaking it all up. And all the more so since indoor public places across the city – including restaurants, cafes, bars, and hotels – are now smoke-free.
On 1 June, Beijing’s new smoking control law came into effect. The Beijing law is the toughest tobacco control law adopted in China to date. Under the law, smoking is prohibited in all indoor public places, and many outdoor public places such as kindergartens and schools, and child and maternal health campuses. The law includes strong penalties for violations – in particular on the owners and managers of establishments who don’t ensure compliance on their premises.
The Beijing Government’s work to enforce the law is off to a great start. It has been great to see the health inspectors out and about in force around the city, checking venues and ensuring compliance with the law, supported by thousands of community volunteers. Its very clear that if you break the law, you can now expect to pay a fine – dozens of businesses have been issued fines in the last couple of weeks alone. Beijing’s residents are actively engaging in the enforcement effort too – several thousand complaints have been made to the 12320 hotline since 1 June.
Alongside the official enforcement effort, I’ve been especially pleased to see the owners and managers of various venues taking it upon themselves to implement the law: take, for example, the local bar near my house which used to allow smoking, where I saw the fuwuyuan proudly pointing to newly installed no-smoking signs, and patiently but firmly explaining to her patrons that smoking indoors is no longer allowed. Or the hotel near my office, where smoking was previously permitted in the hotel meeting rooms – but where now you can’t miss the huge no-smoking signs as you walk in the door. Or the big buzzy Chinese restaurant I took some visiting colleagues, where, when the staff discovered we were from the World Health Organization, pointed to the posters in the restaurant promoting the new law – and told us how pleased they were not to have to breathe their customers’ second-hand smoke any more.
It's also been great to see Beijing Capital International Airport join the leading modern airports in the world, like London Heathrow and Los Angeles International, by making indoor smoking rooms a thing of the past.
I think even those who doubted whether the law could or would be effectively enforced would have to admit to being pleasantly surprised.
Of course, there will continue to be naysayers – those who say that it will never work, or never be accepted by the public, or never last. This has been the case in every place in the world which has introduced a smoke-free law. But with a tough law in place, accompanied by a continued focus on strong enforcement, there is no reason to think that Beijing will be any different to other great cities in the world like New York, London, and Sydney – where “smoke-free” is now the unquestioned norm.
I’m confident of this, because we know that there is strong public support for public places being smoke-free. And the international experience is that public support for smoke-free policies increases over time after the introduction of a new law, even among smokers themselves, as the public comes to realize the benefits of the law.
And with good reason: the benefits of smoke-free laws are substantial. Exposure to second-hand smoke is deadly: it can cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, lung cancer, and premature birth and sudden death in infants. There is no safe level of exposure. Most people don’t realize that second-hand smoke causes dangerously high levels of indoor air pollution. The PM2.5 reading when just 3 people are smoking in a restaurant is likely to be around 600; if 5 people are smoking the reading is likely to top 1200 – far worse than the outdoor air pollution on even a heavily polluted day.
The war against outdoor air pollution is a complex, long-term task. Fixing indoor air pollution caused by second-hand smoke can happen overnight through the introduction of laws requiring public places to be 100% smoke-free. Beijing has now taken its place alongside other great cities around the world in doing this – and the residents of Beijing are now breathing easier for that.
Note: An edited version of this opinion piece was published in China Daily.
About the World Health Organization
WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
For more information please contact
Ms WU Linlin
WHO China Office
E-mail: wul@who.int
Office Tel: +86 10 6532 7191