A volunteer give passenger a gum to help stop smoking. (Photo//Zhengzhou Evening Newspaper)
Volunteers from a local bus company in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, launched a campaign on Tuesday to try to get passengers to quit smoking.
Rather than simply stopping smokers at the station, the volunteers offered gums and a bus guide in exchange for quitting. They also collected cigarette butts.
Local authorities have banned smoking on public buses for over 10 years and achieved some success.
"Passengers are aware of the disadvantage of smoking and they seldom smoke on a bus," said Tian Wei, head (?) of the bus company.
Local elementary school students in east China's Anhui Province also got in on the act of spreading an anti-smoking message.
Today is the World No Tobacco Day 2017 themed at "Tobacco -- a threat to development."
There are more than 300 million smokers in China, nearly one-third of the world's total, according to a 2014 report by the World Health Organization. And 68 percent of Chinese men are reportedly smokers, according to 2015 figures.
Major cities in China have introduced smoking bans in all offices, shopping malls, restaurants, bars and airports in recent years. A stricter "no smoking under roofs" ban also entered force in Shanghai this March.
The best way to stop smoking is still difficult. The use of E-cigarettes which were previously promoted as an alternative for smoking, have been found to encourage youth to smoke, according to a new research of University of California, San Francisco in January.
There's still a long way to go in minimizing tobacco use in a better way, such as reaching out a larger number of smokers with potential health and additional risks. More importantly, it's every individual's own effort to step up and stub out smoking, especially among the young generation.
