It appears that Camp Red Cloud is not the only one in Asia that is trying to ban smoking. According to Time Asia many Asian countries have begun campaigns to curb or even ban smoking. A notable exception to this trend is Korea.

One measure of the extent to which regional attitudes to tobacco have changed has been the readiness of Asian countries to adopt the FCTC. Since May 2003, the treaty has been ratified by 57 nations across the region, making it one of the most rapidly embraced covenants in the U.N.’s history. The FCTC requires participating states to outlaw tobacco advertising and sponsorship, to demand that tobacco firms cover at least 30% of every cigarette pack with health warnings, and to ban the use of euphemistic adjectives like “light” or “mild” to describe cigarettes. It’s the first legal initiative that attempts to control the use of tobacco on a global scale, and Asian countries are among its keenest supporters, including Japan, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Singapore and Sri Lanka. China and Cambodia have yet to ratify the treaty, but they are signatories. To paraphrase the old Virginia Slims slogan, Asia’s come a long way, baby.

Unlikely as it sounds, the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is the region’s pacesetter. Never mind tweaking regulations on tobacco advertising—the Bhutanese government has banned the sale of tobacco altogether (as well as, from last week, smoking in all public places). Tobacco has been gradually withdrawn from retail outlets in 18 of the country’s 20 administrative districts since 1994. As of December 2004, it became illegal to sell tobacco in the remaining two districts, including the capital, Thimphu. While the short-term beneficiaries of the new policy will be black-market traders—now able to charge up to $2.60 for a packet of Marlboro, up from an under-the-counter price of $1.30 before the ban—in the long term, all Bhutanese will gain.

Even the Japanese are getting in on this trend:

With the number of smokers steadily declining (to fewer than 30% of the adult population, according to a Japan Tobacco Inc. survey), social tolerance of the habit is waning. Since 2002, authorities in Tokyo’s prestigious Chiyoda ward—the heart of the Japanese capital—have been introducing outdoor smoking bans, and smoking on the street is now prohibited in more than half the district. Meanwhile, Kobe’s popular Takenohama Beach became, last summer, Japan’s first beach to restrict smoking, which can now take place only in designated areas. “We were hesitant to enforce the smoking ban too strictly, but it turned out that people were quite cooperative,” says Ritsuko Morigami, spokeswoman for the local tourism association. Likewise in Osaka, a pachinko parlor, the Shikairo, has become smoke-free in an effort to attract female clients. “People often remark how fresh the air is,” says manager Maya Ihara. “We get pregnant customers, and I believe they come here because there’s no tobacco smoke.”

I don’t see this trend catching on here in Korea but I am curious about what the reaction of the Korean general public would be if the government suddenly banned smoking in many public areas? There would probably be a lot of pissed off ajushis just like there are a lot of pissed off GI’s about the Smoke Free CRC campaign.

I have heard arguments for and against smoking. One person told me they should ban smoking because he was tired of picking up cigarette butts all the time from the smokers. I just replied that yes picking up cigarette butts all the time is annoying but cleaning up chewing gum is even more annoying and I don’t see any campaigns to ban chewing gum yet. Then I have heard the arguement that smokers expend large amounts of health insurance money when they get older due to smoking related diseases. Then insurance companies and Medicaid should have clauses that do not cover smoking related diseases.

There are plenty of worthy reasons to ban smoking but I think that if someone wants to destroy their lungs and put themselves at a higher risk for cancer then they should be able to do that. We let people drink alcohol and that is way more dangerous than cigarettes. However, banning cigarettes in public places except in designated smoking areas should be okay because non-smokers shouldn’t have to be exposed to cigarette smoke if they don’t want to. Educating people about the dangers of smoking has a gradual effect of people making their own decisions to quit smoking without big brother forcing them to which is evident by the large drop of smokers in western societies. People are less likely to quit doing something if they feel they are being forced to thus the reason why smoking shouldn’t be banned out right. It would just increasing black marketing and encourage organized crime. If the Army really wants to increase educational awareness about the dangers of smoking then maybe they should do what Singapore did:

To gauge how taut the net around Asian smokers may eventually become, look at Singapore, which has been famously tough on cigarettes since 1970 when legislation was first introduced banning smoking in cinemas and buses. Today, all air-conditioned areas except bars are smoke-free, and last November the country introduced mandatory counseling for smokers under 18 (they are nabbed by antismoking police attached to the Health Sciences Authority). Since August, cigarette packets have had to carry dreadful color photos of the damage smoking can wreak, including images of a cancerous lung, a young man on life support, and a brain oozing blood after a stroke.

Singaporean cafe worker Polin Hadnin is already reduced to taking hurried smoke breaks beside a bleak rear entrance to her workplace. Cigarette butts are jammed in the lone ashtray and there’s no place to sit. There are probably few people more socially scorned than the Singaporean smoker. But Polin’s mental defenses are shored up with comforting thoughts—about the aged relative who has smoked all his life and is still going strong, about the fitness fanatic who never touched a cigarette but keeled over one day, and so on. “If it’s really so bad for you,” she asks, “why don’t they just ban it?”

I can just see the MP’s now grabbing people for smoking related offenses.