No cigarettes as gifts: a new fad for a new year

BEIJING - Five Chinese health organizations asked people not to send cigarettes as gifts nor offer them to guests, in quest of a healthy Spring Festival.

The five organizations, including Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Association on Tobacco Control, Chinese Preventive Medicine Association and Chinese Medical Association, made the plea just prior to the arrival of the Year of the Horse.

Chinese people at family gatherings during Spring Festival are discouraged from presenting cigarettes as gifts or persuading others to smoke, said the written proposal.

There should be no smoking at public venues, as smokers should respect other people's rights to good health, it added.

The five organizations encouraged citizens to bravely say "no" to passive smoking and urged medical workers to vigorously disseminate the idea that smoking is harmful to health to ordinary citizens.

The written proposal reads that when you give cigarettes as a gift, you are giving more than 200 harmful substances contained in the tobacco smoke and that smoking might lead to cancer, heart disease, lung disease and death.

China is a major tobacco producer and consumer with about 300 million smokers. Giving cigarettes as gifts is a long-held tradition, especially during the Spring Festival.