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China eyes wider ban of tobacco ads
BEIJING, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislature has begun reviewing a draft amendment to the 20-year-old Advertisement Law that aims to ban tobacco advertisements in more public venues and online.
"Tobacco advertisements directly or indirectly transmitted via radio, film, television, newspaper, magazines, books, audio and visual products, electronic publications, telecommunication networks and the Internet are banned," said the draft amendment submitted to lawmakers on Monday.
Meanwhile, the draft includes more specific public venues where tobacco ads would be banned, such as libraries, cultural centers, museums, parks, waiting rooms, theaters, meeting halls, sports auditoriums, and the vicinities of hospitals and schools.
"Outdoor tobacco advertisements are forbidden," it said.
The bill reflects a heated anti-smoking battle in the country. In June, academics, health and legal professionals and tobacco control experts jointly signed a letter to the national legislative body, urging them to fully outlaw tobacco advertising.
In 2003, China signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It requires signatories to "comprehensively ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship."
If the draft is passed, showing actual smoking or drinking in ads will be prohibited, as will images of minors, and promotion of binge drinking. Adverts will not be allowed to imply that smoking and drinking have positive effects such as "relieving anxiety."
Tabled to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for the first reading at its bi-monthly session this week, the amendment "further regulates advertising, boosts the development of the advertising industry and protects consumers," according to an explanatory document for the lawmakers.
However, while touting the draft as "huge progress" on tobacco control, Liang Xiaofeng, vice director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that it still falls short of a comprehensive ban of tobacco adverts, sales and sponsorships.
As the world's largest tobacco maker and consumer, China has more than 300 million smokers and another 740 million people exposed to second-hand smoke.
According to a report released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in May, 6.9 percent of Chinese junior school students smoke and 48.5 percent of students between 13 and 15 years old had seen a tobacco advertisement in the previous month. In a survey conducted among children aged five and six, 85 percent could identify at least one cigarette brand.
"The draft amendment lists various mediums where tobacco ads are banned, but an enumerative approach will never cover all advert carriers, and the ban will soon be overcome by new forms of advertisements," said Wu Yiqun, vice director of Think Tank Research Center for Health Development, a non-governmental anti-smoking group.
Places that have considerable foot traffic but are unmentioned in the ban include supermarkets, malls, Internet cafes and public toilets.
Wu called for "banning all forms of tobacco advertisements... anytime, anywhere."
SHIELD FOR CONSUMERS' INTERESTS
The draft carries harsher punishment for giving false information, including functions, ingredients, expiration dates and prices of advertised products or services.
Clients, makers and publishers of false adverts will be fined three to five times the advertising fees, the draft proposes, raising the minimum from the equal of the advertising's worth in the current law. In the case of the absence of an exact advertising fee, a situation untouched in the current law, parties will be fined between 200,000 yuan (32,500 U.S. dollars) and one million yuan.
Those promoting or selling banned products or services will pay five to 10 times the advertising fees as punishment if they commit such violations more than three times within two years. When no benchmark fees are available, fines will range from one to two million yuan.
All parties will be suspended from doing businesses, and in severe cases, striped of business licenses if the draft is passed.
According to a new article, figures appearing in advertisements, many of whom are celebrities with public influence, should not attest to the functions or qualities of products or services they haven't used.
Meanwhile, adverts for drugs, medical equipment and health food should not use health experts or patients to claim the effects of the products, and exaggerations or guarantees on such effects are off-limits.
The draft also addresses spam, a major annoyance for phone users, by stipulating that no adverts should be sent to households, vehicles or via phones and emails without the recipients' consent.
A 2013 report revealed that more than 200 billion junk messages were sent to Chinese phone users in the first half of 2013, and a sample analysis found that 59 percent of them were advertisements.
According to the draft, operators of telecommunication businesses and Internet service providers have the obligation to withdraw services for those sending illegal ad messages.
BEIJING, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislature has begun reviewing a draft amendment to the 20-year-old Advertisement Law that aims to ban tobacco advertisements in more public venues and online.
"Tobacco advertisements directly or indirectly transmitted via radio, film, television, newspaper, magazines, books, audio and visual products, electronic publications, telecommunication networks and the Internet are banned," said the draft amendment submitted to lawmakers on Monday.
Meanwhile, the draft includes more specific public venues where tobacco ads would be banned, such as libraries, cultural centers, museums, parks, waiting rooms, theaters, meeting halls, sports auditoriums, and the vicinities of hospitals and schools.
"Outdoor tobacco advertisements are forbidden," it said.
The bill reflects a heated anti-smoking battle in the country. In June, academics, health and legal professionals and tobacco control experts jointly signed a letter to the national legislative body, urging them to fully outlaw tobacco advertising.
In 2003, China signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It requires signatories to "comprehensively ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship."
If the draft is passed, showing actual smoking or drinking in ads will be prohibited, as will images of minors, and promotion of binge drinking. Adverts will not be allowed to imply that smoking and drinking have positive effects such as "relieving anxiety."
Tabled to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for the first reading at its bi-monthly session this week, the amendment "further regulates advertising, boosts the development of the advertising industry and protects consumers," according to an explanatory document for the lawmakers.
However, while touting the draft as "huge progress" on tobacco control, Liang Xiaofeng, vice director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that it still falls short of a comprehensive ban of tobacco adverts, sales and sponsorships.
As the world's largest tobacco maker and consumer, China has more than 300 million smokers and another 740 million people exposed to second-hand smoke.
According to a report released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in May, 6.9 percent of Chinese junior school students smoke and 48.5 percent of students between 13 and 15 years old had seen a tobacco advertisement in the previous month. In a survey conducted among children aged five and six, 85 percent could identify at least one cigarette brand.
"The draft amendment lists various mediums where tobacco ads are banned, but an enumerative approach will never cover all advert carriers, and the ban will soon be overcome by new forms of advertisements," said Wu Yiqun, vice director of Think Tank Research Center for Health Development, a non-governmental anti-smoking group.
Places that have considerable foot traffic but are unmentioned in the ban include supermarkets, malls, Internet cafes and public toilets.
Wu called for "banning all forms of tobacco advertisements... anytime, anywhere."
SHIELD FOR CONSUMERS' INTERESTS
The draft carries harsher punishment for giving false information, including functions, ingredients, expiration dates and prices of advertised products or services.
Clients, makers and publishers of false adverts will be fined three to five times the advertising fees, the draft proposes, raising the minimum from the equal of the advertising's worth in the current law. In the case of the absence of an exact advertising fee, a situation untouched in the current law, parties will be fined between 200,000 yuan (32,500 U.S. dollars) and one million yuan.
Those promoting or selling banned products or services will pay five to 10 times the advertising fees as punishment if they commit such violations more than three times within two years. When no benchmark fees are available, fines will range from one to two million yuan.
All parties will be suspended from doing businesses, and in severe cases, striped of business licenses if the draft is passed.
According to a new article, figures appearing in advertisements, many of whom are celebrities with public influence, should not attest to the functions or qualities of products or services they haven't used.
Meanwhile, adverts for drugs, medical equipment and health food should not use health experts or patients to claim the effects of the products, and exaggerations or guarantees on such effects are off-limits.
The draft also addresses spam, a major annoyance for phone users, by stipulating that no adverts should be sent to households, vehicles or via phones and emails without the recipients' consent.
A 2013 report revealed that more than 200 billion junk messages were sent to Chinese phone users in the first half of 2013, and a sample analysis found that 59 percent of them were advertisements.
According to the draft, operators of telecommunication businesses and Internet service providers have the obligation to withdraw services for those sending illegal ad messages.
