 Seoul National University |
Staff Reporter
A group of health experts and civic activists Monday called for the government to ban the manufacturing and distribution of cigarettes.
They urged the government to conduct intensive rehabilitation programs for smokers and encourage tobacco farms to convert to other industries.
The Tobacco Free World and the Korea Association of Health Promotion, among others, are pushing to prohibit the selling and making of tobacco products within 10 years.
Those who violate a proposed law would be imprisoned up to five years or fined up to 50 million won. The members are planning to submit the bill to the National Assembly within a year.
Professor Park Jae-gahb of Seoul National University, who heads the movement, dubbed cigarettes as "silent killers."
"Every day, 137 people in Korea die of diseases related to smoking. International health experts assume more than 5 million people worldwide die annually because of cigarettes. The number is higher than deaths from the Korean War and from traffic accidents," he said at the Press Center in central Seoul.
Park claimed that tobacco contributes to about 30 percent of all cancer cases here. "There are 62 carcinogens, including 15 Class-A materials, in a cigarette. Tobacco is more addictive than marijuana, which is banned from distribution here," the authority in colon cancer said.
This is the second time the professor has proposed a similar bill but the prospects of it passing aren't as rosy, speculators say, as it was during the last assembly.
Park and his colleagues, devout opponents of cigarettes, claim that the reason the lawmakers and the administration hesitate on implementing the relevant law is the 7 trillion won in tax collected from the products.
The professor urged the administration to use all the money to help smokers and to tear down the infrastructure of domestic smoking distribution. "The government shouldn't consider smokers as a simple tax payer," he said.
More than 137 social leaders signed up for the 2006 proposals and this time, the number of supporters doubled, the Korean Association of Smoking and Health, who also signed the pledge, said.
Park Jae-gahb said he began to push for the law since he served as the chief of the National Cancer Center and has come across many people suffering from diseases, but still smoke habitually.
He managed to persuade all of his staff to quit smoking within two years and held rows of campaigns from then. He led the defense ministry to ban sales of tax-free cigarettes inside the barracks, which was widely accused of being the No. 1 reason for the increasing number of smokers in military camps.
Park said he would continue holding aggressive campaigns until cigarettes were thrown out of Korea.
According to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, 41.8 percent of males and 4 percent of females smoke. Though the number of adult male smokers is falling, more females and the younger generations are taking up the habit, the report said. They consume more than 3.8 trillion packets of cigarettes a year.
The direct relation between smoking and disease prevalence is still under fierce debate as recent court rulings did not acknowledge them.
bjs@koreatimes.co.kr
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