Shanghai takes Expo as an opportunity to enhance tobacco control
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Zhou Di, a waitress at a restaurant in the World Exposition park, has mixed feelings about her past six months.
As a heavy smoker, at first Zhou found it very difficult to work at the park since strict anti-smoking measures had been enforced.
"I can only smoke in one of the designated areas one hundred meters away, but since I was pretty busy at work, I was forced to smoke less," she said.
However, as time passed, she gradually became accustomed to it.
"I used to smoke every day, but now I have one cigarette about every three to five days," said the 22-year-old.
The 2010 Shanghai World Expo is the first of its kind to pursue a "Smoke-free Expo", by implementing a series of measures to create a smoke-free environment. These include prohibiting lighters and matches at the Expo park, prohibiting staff from smoking indoors, sending volunteers into the park to discourage visitors and staff from smoking, introducing a no-smoking policy in the pavilions and barring souvenir shops from selling tobacco products.
In fact, the organizers of the Expo declined a 200-million-yuan (about 30 million U.S. dollars) sponsorship deal from a tobacco company in July 2009.
Zheng Pinpin, associate professor at the School of Public Health at Fudan University, said her team plans to release an evaluation report on the implementation of tobacco control measures at the World Expo next month. Their survey found that tourists had been informed about the anti-smoking measures through a variety of channels and most of them had broadly supported the idea of a "Smoke-free Expo".
Sarah England, who oversees the Tobacco Free Initiative at the World Health Organization (WHO) in China, said Thursday at a seminar reviewing tobacco control efforts at the Expo that Shanghai has done a good job in holding a "Smoke-free Expo".
"A Shanghai smoke-free Expo is feasible and even popular," she said.
In fact, the "Smoke-free Expo" is just one part of Shanghai's efforts to control tobacco use in public places.
A newly-amended Shanghai Public Places Smoking Control Law came into effect on March 1, prohibiting smoking in several public places including kindergartens, schools, hospitals, stadiums, public-service locations, shopping malls, libraries, theaters and museums. It also imposed fines on individuals or establishments that failed to follow the rules.
In support of the law, several promotional activities have also been carried out, including posting "No Smoking" signs in public places, delivering posters and broadcasting anti-smoking advertisements. About 39,000 tobacco control volunteers were also enlisted to conduct inspections at public places, according to Li Zhongyang, vice director-general of the Shanghai Health Promotion Committee.
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