Non-smoking country!

[Bruce B]

Vietnam has passed a law banning smoking in public places and all tobacco advertising, an official said Tuesday.

The law, passed by 440 out of 468 national assembly deputies on Monday, also makes it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under 18 years old, said the parliamentary official, who did not want to be named.

It will take effect from next May, state media said.

Smoking in public places -- including schools, hospitals, office buildings and on public transport -- was banned once already in 2010 by a government decree, which also raised tax on tobacco and restricted the sale of cigarettes.

But that order was widely ignored, with smoking in public places widespread and cigarettes available at small kiosks on nearly every street in the capital Hanoi.

The anti-smoking campaign group Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) welcomed the new law -- the full text of which has not yet been released -- saying it was a "historic and important milestone" for the country.

"We are very happy about this development," SEATCA director Bungon Ritthiphakdee said, adding that the final version of the law was strong and in line with the WHO-Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

According to SEATCA, there are currently 15.3 million smokers in Vietnam. Some 47.4 percent of adult males smoke.

Tobacco kills 40,000 people per year in Vietnam and that figure is expected to rise to 70,000 per year by 2030, according to local media reports



Now why can't the US adopt this? I absolutely HATE going to Vegas....

 

[cjfrbw]

I remember going to a course in the Kabuki Hotel in San Francisco years ago. There was a very large group of Japanese executives in a conference. I watched when they let out for a break. They were meticulously and expensively dressed in beautiful suits, and to a man, they took out cigarettes and smoked. They also had an enormous degree of stylized smoking gestures, like Hollywood actors, pulling the cigs out of beuatiful gold cases, tamping them just so, with a look of sophisticated insouciance as they lit up and juggled the cigs like little batons.

Americans smoke like pigs with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, but they actually smoke a lot less than Asians. There is lot less smoking on the West Coast also then the East Coast and South.

Don't know about the cultural aspects, but apparently a lot more smoking and related mortality in Asia as a result.

 

[Bruce B]

When I went to Victor/Flair studios a couple years ago in Tokyo, the air was so thick, I thought the building was on fire! There was a half-million dollar SSL console with brown gunk all over it. All of the equipment looked that way. I had a headache for a week after that!