Jump to full article: Xinhua Newswire, 2008-07-18
Intro: Beijing health chiefs are insisting they will use education and persuasion to discourage illegal smoking in public places, rather than use spot fines to enforce a ban that was passed to clean up the city's image for the Olympic Games next month.
A city health official reiterated the softly-softly policy just a day after national health authorities announced that more than 100,000 Chinese die every year from exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke. . . .
Smoking is the biggest contributing factor to cancer deaths in China, where 500 million are affected by second-hand smoke. The nation's cancer death rate has risen 80 percent in the past 30 years, Caijing Magazine reported Wednesday.
China Daily also reported in early June that half of youths who do not smoke suffer from second-hand smoke either at home or public venues.
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