Smoking Ban

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Effective May 1 of this year there will be an indoor smoking ban of sorts in China. The ban will include restaurants and hotels. There will also be an education push to try to get fewer people to smoke. This should be interesting.

If you are a man in China, there is a 68% chance that you are a smoker. Only about 4% of women smoke. Dudes like their smokes here. They smoke anywhere they damn please, in spite of signs posted. They don't follow traffic laws, what makes you think they are going to start obeying non smoking rules? I've seen them light up in hospitals, in elevators, on buses, and even in an airplane, although that guy got in a heap o' trouble. In fact you can tell you're on a Chinese airline because of all the coughing.

There are enough loopholes in this law to drive a cigarette boat through, and penalties are basically non existent. However, it is part of a fledgling effort by at least some parts of the Chinese government to at least encourage people to be non smokers.