Increase in tobacco deaths

Around one third of men in China will die from smoking, unless they give up now.A survey of deaths occurring in Hong Kong in 1998 may foreshadow what is likely to happen on the mainland in the future.

Doctors at the University of Beijing find that tobacco was the cause of 33% of all male deaths and 5% of female deaths in the 30 to 65 age group. When male smokers only are considered, tobacco causes half of the deaths in this group.

These risk are more than twice as large as has yet been seen in mainland China. But cigarette smoking peaked about 20 years ago in Hong Kong and has not done so on the mainland. Smoking causes death on a timescale of years - the cigarettes smoked in someone's thirties may cause a cancer to develop quarter of a century later.

Since two thirds of all young men in China smoke, and half of them will die from their habit, this means that a third of the male population will be killed by tobacco. This shcok is suffiecient to make people think and leave this bad and risky habit..