In dozens of rural villages in\u00a0China’s western provinces, one of the first things primary school kids learn is what made their education possible: tobacco.<\/p>\n
“On the gates of these schools, you\u2019ll see slogans that say ‘Genius comes from hard work — Tobacco helps you become talented,'” said Xu Guihua, secretary general of the privately funded lobby group\u00a0Chinese Association on Tobacco Control. The schools are sponsored by local units of China’s government-owned monopoly cigarette maker. “They are pinning their hopes on young people taking up smoking.”<\/p>\n
Anti-tobacco groups say efforts to reduce sales in the world’s largest cigarette consumer, such as a ban on smoking in public places introduced in May, have been hampered by light penalties, a lack of education about the dangers of smoking and the fact that the regulator, the\u00a0State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, also runs the world’s biggest cigarette maker, China National Tobacco Corp.<\/p>\n
This is from an article<\/a> on Bloomberg.com in which I learned that China has 320 million smokers. Like Princeton’s Anne-Marie Slaughter replied over Twitter<\/a>, that’s almost the size of the US population!<\/p>\n And regarding the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration owning China National Tobacco Corp., I think I’ve found the perfect counterexample for when I teach about incentive compatibility in the law and economics seminar I teach in the spring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In dozens of rural villages in\u00a0China’s western provinces, one of the first things primary school kids learn is what made their education possible: tobacco. “On…<\/p>\n