Tobacco News from CigarettesOn.Net

You can escape the ciggy siren's song, not its silence

I have a confession to make. Ten years after giving up smoking I have started the wretched habit again. And it's not just the occasional puff. Rather, it's the full-on 15-a-day craving-led nicotine addiction that I swore blind to rid myself of forever a decade ago.

I kept my promise faithfully for more than 3,600 days so why did I relapse? Why have I gone back to almost kippering myself on a daily basis when just a few weeks ago I found the smell chokingly repugnant?

Quite simply, Beijing seduced me like a sexy siren.

Within one week of stepping off the plane, I tentatively, guiltily accepted the offer of a splendidly-branded Craven A from a colleague after watching him inhale with an almost beatific look of pleasure following a fine meal washed down with plenty of thirst-quenching beer. I must admit when I lit up it felt good. It was as if I had breathed new life into the ghost of my old addiction.

What some say about alcohol - first you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you - applies equally as well to nicotine. A few days later, embarrassed about cadging the occasional cancer stick, I bought a packet.

That was the next step in my downfall: not just the act of going to a tobacconist with intent and voluntarily purchasing cigarettes but discovering how incredibly cheap they are here. My chosen brand cost 5 yuan. Back home in the UK they are more than 10 times that. Only a serious addict would fork out so much at that price.

Then there is the near ubiquitous tolerance of smoking here. Walk past the No Smoking sign in a restaurant and drop a pack of ciggies on the table and an ashtray will magically appear. Find the designated No Smoking area at work and you often find the best conversation. Light up in a bar and people don't tut and move away.

In London, I didn't smoke at home because I had young children. A smoking ban in bars and restaurants was rigidly enforced. At work you had to leave the office if you wanted to light up. Clusters of people gathered like the addicts they were outside offices slaking their addiction. The habit began to look ugly and anti-social, and those who indulged were in a very real sense the outsiders. One US employer made its staff sign a declaration that they would not smoke even outside work in their own time, so opposed was the boss to the habit (he was one of those reformed smokers who become evangelistic zealots about their new, healthier lifestyle).

China seems to have mixed feelings about smoking. According to statistics cited on Wikipedia (and smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics), the Chinese smoked, 1,320 cigarettes per head of population in 1998 - not as many as the US, Russia or Japan, but still a significant number. A few weeks ago, the authorities in Gong'an county ordered civil servants and teachers to smoke 230,000 packs of the locally-made Hubei brand each year to shore up the economy.

Those who did not smoke enough or used brands from other provinces or overseas faced being fined or even fired. The order was only rescinded when worldwide media coverage generated criticism. Half of all male doctors smoke in China and many remain unaware of the associated health risks.

One local government official lost his job when a photograph of him at his desk appeared on the Internet. Clearly visible next to him was a carton of prestige cigarettes which would have cost several thousand yuan. It was argued he could not have afforded such a luxury item on his public salary so something fishy must have been going on.

However, the government, despite receiving mountains of excise revenue from the habit, has been trying to discourage it.

Smoking is banned inside all public buildings in Beijing. Just this week, it was announced the government had raised consumption tax on cigarettes by between 6 and 11 percent both to curb smoking and add revenue to state coffers.

But there has not yet been a seismic shift in society's laissez-faire attitude to smokers and smoking and, until there is, it is a habit that will not be stubbed out.

Now, excuse me, sucker that I am, while I nip out to satisfy my craving.