Tobacco.org

• VIETNAM: Anti-Smoking Drive Fails to Curb Male Tobacco Abuse 

In Vietnamese tobacco is called 'thouc la', which means 'medicinal leaves'. Given a reported 40,000 die each year from lung cancer, it is not the most apposite name. . . .

Huong typifies the male-smoking population of Vietnam, considered one of the biggest in the world: 56 percent of the country's estimated 86 million population. The figure could be higher, said health officials who spoke with IPS. China, Malaysia and Laos all record higher figures, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

"It's a huge burden to the health system," Dr Nguyen Tuan Lam of the Tobacco Free Initiative of WHO told IPS in a telephone interview. He believes the official number of lung cancer deaths is massively underreported, saying it could be closer to 70,000. Compare this figure with the incidence of traffic accidents, often called a "hidden epidemic" in the motorcycle-riding South-east Asian country, which accounted for a comparatively lower 12,000 deaths in 2008.

Compared to men, there are extremely few female smokers in Vietnam. In fact, the communist nation has one of the lowest female smoking rates in the world at 2.1 percent of the population.

"The attitude here is that only naughty girls smoke. It's not ladylike and it's not nice," said Lam.

Since Vietnam ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in December 2004, it has banned all forms of advertising, increased taxes on cigarettes and last year added larger warning labels to packaging.

In late August government announced that starting Jan. 1, 2010, smoking would be prohibited in public places

Jump to full article »