Smokers puff away behind smoke sceen

China's 300 million smokers are turning to slim and super-slim cigarettes in the belief that they will be exposed to less harmful chemicals than traditional brands.

Production and sales of slim cigarettes doubled in 2014 in China, the world's largest tobacco consumer and producer. A total of 15 billion slim cigarettes were sold that year, a drastic rise from 2007's figure of 500 million.

Ling Chengxing, head of China's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and China National Tobacco Corp said at a meeting earlier this year that slim cigarettes are "in line with the trend of consumption and tobacco product innovation" and are of "lower costs and cause less harm" compared with regular smokes.

An article on the corporation's website says that slim cigarettes have "huge market potential".

Smokers are under the impression that slim cigarettes are "healthier" compared with regular cigarettes.

"It's the lesser of two evils," said Zhang Qingyu, a middle-aged chain smoker who switched to slim cigarettes three years ago. "My family supports me on the switch because, you know, smoking kills and with such a 'healthier' alternative, I may live longer."

Most disturbingly, slim cigarettes are popular among young smokers and fashion-conscious white-collar workers, a large proportion of whom are female.

At a cigarette store at Beijing's Xuanwumen, colorful packs of slim cigarettes are prominently displayed on glass counters.

"We have over a dozen slim brands with prices ranging from 12 yuan ($1.80) to 32 yuan," said the unnamed shop owner, who added that most of his customers are young people. "There are a growing number of slim brands and they sell well."

China's vocal anti-smoking lobby said the myth that slim cigarettes are healthier is a dangerous one, describing it as a "beautiful trap".

Wu Yiqun, executive vice-director of ThinkTank, a Beijing-based NGO committed to tobacco control, said the hazards of slim cigarettes have been greatly underplayed in China.

"There has been no evidence that a smoker is exposed to less chemicals and poisonous materials after switching to slim cigarettes," said Wu, one of China's most prominent anti-smoking campaigners. "Smokers feel slim cigarettes are less 'fulfilling' so they use other tobacco products, smoke more of them or simply take more drags," she said.

Xu Guihua, deputy head of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control, said the promotion of slim cigarettes by the tobacco industry misleads consumers.

"There is no such thing as 'safe' cigarettes no matter how slim they are," she said, adding that slim cigarettes are a marketing hoax used by the industry to dupe and extract more profits from the world's largest tobacco market.

China's tobacco industry generated almost 956 billion yuan in taxes and profits in 2013. More than a million people die in the country from tobacco-related illnesses annually - around 3,000 people every day - around $150,000 of profit for each death.

(China Daily 11/13/2015 page10)