Raise cigarette prices to curb smoking among China’s poor, academic says, after study links poverty and tobacco consumption

More than 23 per cent of households with at least one smoker are poverty-stricken – double that of those where no one smokes – a national study finds

Their health was worse than non-smokers’, yet they don’t accept research on tobacco’s ill-effects. Raising cigarette prices would reduce smoking, academic says

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A homeless man lights up a cigarette in Hefei, Anhui province. In the study, those in poor areas had a 34.2 per cent smoking rate compared to the national average of 26.6 per cent. Photo: AFP

Mandy Zuoin Shanghai

Published: 8:15pm, 1 Jan 2021Updated: 8:15pm, 1 Jan 2021

If you are poor in China, you are more likely to smoke, a study by Beijing Normal University shows.

Researchers found more than 23 per cent of households with at least one smoker were poverty-stricken, which was double that of non-smokers.

Lead researcher Professor Jin Chenggang said the current prices for a packet of cigarettes, which can be as low as 2 yuan (30 US cents), is too low. According to a 2018 report by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, half of the smokers in the country spent less than 10 yuan for each packet of cigarettes they consumed.

If the price were increased, and tobacco producers taxed more heavily, it would deter low-income people from smoking – and have numerous positive knock-on effects, he believes.

A chef lights up a cigarette in Beijing. The link between poverty and propensity to smoke is not unique to China. Photo: AFP

Tobacco use significantly impacts a family’s income because of increased health care costs, as well as its effect on the capacity of people suffering chronic lung or heart diseases to work, the study found.

The link between poverty and propensity to smoke is not unique to China – it is reflected in many parts of the world.