From the AP, via CNN.com, Earth-shattering news that China has ratified an international treaty that restricts tobacco advertising and sales. No doubt this will be pursued with the same vigor and enthusiasm with which China has pursued its intellectual property rights commitments. The mind quakes at the thought of so much resolve. Read on:

China agrees to smoking curbs

Monday, August 29, 2005
AP/ CNN.com

China will have an uphill battle to reduce smoking.

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China, home to more than 300 million smokers, has ratified an international treaty prohibiting tobacco advertising and will ban tobacco vending machines, the government said Monday.

The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was ratified Sunday by the National People's Congress, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Parliament leaders "supported the treaty by announcing that China will ban tobacco vending machines of any kind" in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, Xinhua said.

The treaty requires China to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship on radio, television, print media and the Internet within five years, according to Xinhua.

It also prohibits tobacco company sponsorship of international events and activities.

China has tightened regulations meant to prevent minors from buying tobacco, but enforcement has been uneven.

Some 5 million smokers in China are under 18, according to the government.Chinese tobacco companies sold 1.8 trillion cigarettes in 2003, Xinhua said, citing the Chinese Association on Smoking Control.

1.8 trillion cigarettes. I said, gawd damn, that's a lot of smokes. 300 sticks --or 15 packs-- for every man, woman and child on Earth, according to my back-of-the-envelope calculations. And I can tell you with complete conviction that every single one of those cigarettes was smoked down to the filter in a restaurant in which I was eating dinner. I can't look at a pot of shuizhu yu without the scent of tobacco smoke filling up my nostrils. It's some kind of wierd, conditioned response that has been created in my brain by fifteen months of immersion in a cloud of second-hand smoke.

Also, I'm not really sure of the impact that this treaty will have, regardless of the vigor of enforcement. In my time in China, I have seen almost no cigarette advertising that I can recall, and exactly zero cigarette vending machines. I have, however, seen cigarettes being sold in every corner store in the country, in every restaurant (just ask the waitress to bring you a pack) and by a nearly infinite number of street vendors operating from suitcases, cardboard boxes and blankets rolled out flat on the sidewalk. So I'm not sure a ban of cigarette machines will keep the devil-sticks away from the grasping hands of China's innocent babes.

A ban of sidewalks and restaurants might have some effect.