One year on -- Beijing's strictest smoking ban

They said it couldn't be done but, 12 months on, Beijing's smoking ban has been heralded a success having made shared public spaces in the capital cleaner, healthier and safer.

For people like Zhu Chunmei, 48, who is a waitress in a small restaurant in downtown Beijing, before the ban her working environment was thick with smoke and the smell would cling to her hair and clothes.

"Many people would light up in the restaurant and we could not persuade them otherwise, the room was always so murky," she told Xinhua during an interview just before the World Health Organization's World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) on Tuesday.

Beijing, which is home to more than four million adult smokers, rolled out what has been deemed the "strictest smoking ban in history" on June 1, 2015, prohibiting smoking in indoor public places, workplaces and public transportation.

"Our customers are all aware of the law, so now they smoke outside," Zhu said. "Now and then a customer might forget and light up a cigarette inside, but they stop when we remind them."

Huo Ran (pseudonym) has worked at Chaoyang Hospital, Beijing, for 15 years. She said that before the ban it was not unusual to see visitors smoking in the stairwell.

"How could I stop them?" she said. "They were often smoking to relieve their anxiety as someone close to them was sick. So we would turn a blind eye."

After the new law was implemented, however, the smokers were conspicuous in their absence from the stairwell.

"Doctors and staff also stopped smoking in public areas, too," she said.

According to a report by Beijing Youth Daily, the department to help people quit smoking in Chaoyang hospital saw a boom of patients starting from last October. Now, about 100 patients a month sign up to the service, almost two to three times the number before the law came out.

Photographer Qiu Yong, 36, quit smoking last year. "I quit out of respect for others, no matter where I went, people would be disgusted by the smell of my cigarette smoke," he said.

"In the year since the rule was enforced, we have progressed beyond our imagination," said Mao Qun'an, an official with the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

The Chinese Association on Tobacco Control performed undercover inspections on 500 public places in April 2015 and May 2016 to discover how the regulation had changed public spaces. It found that hospitals have been successful in the implementation of the rule, while bus stops did not fare so well. Internet cafes and pubs have, by far, seen the greatest improvement.

The survey showed that 84 percent of people were satisfied with tobacco control measures, double the percentage that agreed with this statement last year. Moreover, in excess of 93 percent of interviewees supported the smoke-free regulation.

While upbeat about the results, Angela Pratta, who leads the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative in China, said the ban had not always been so popular.

"A lot of people said it was crazy," she said. "They said the law would never work, and even if it was passed, enforcement would be an issue. The survey, however, has quashed all doubt. It shows that the law works, and, moreover, that people support it."

She noted that there is similar dissent today, but this time over the feasibility of a nation-wide regulation, which is currently being discussed with the view for it to be in place by the end of the year.

China is home to 316 million smokers, with another 740 million exposed to second-hand smoke. In 2015 about 733,000 Chinese were diagnosed with lung cancer related to smoking.

A national law is necessary, but medical staff, legal experts and law enforcement officers are concerned with the current draft.

It limits indoor smoke-free areas to "shared space," while restaurants, cafes, hotels and airport terminal buildings are allowed to have dedicated smoking areas. It also gives smokers a second chance -- a verbal warning as long as it is not their second offense.

"In China, the only non-shared space in the workplace is the office of senior managers," said Wu Yiqun, deputy director of the ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development. "If top leaders are allowed to smoke in the building, what sort of example are they setting for other employees."

Cui Xiaobo, professor with Capital Medical University in Beijing, said smoking areas are ineffective. "Smoke drifts," he said. "The flow of air means that smoking areas are basically non-functional."

Besides, Wang Benjin, deputy head of Beijing Health Inspection Institute, believes smoking areas could complicate law enforcement. "It would be confusing because smoking areas differ place to place. So how do we identify who is breaking the law?"

"In the past we have issued regulations on smoking areas, but almost nobody was fined as a result," Cui said.

Fines collected under the Beijing ban have totaled in excess of one million yuan (158,000 U.S. dollars) since last June, municipal health authorities announced last Thursday.

"The punishments have proved effective," said Liang Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. "If we change the fine to a warning, the law is weakened."

Some other people also expressed concern that a more relaxed national law may dilute the strict ban in Beijing.

Waitress Zhu told Xinhua that she has become accustomed to her non-smoking work environment, and feels uncomfortable when she is exposed to smoke again.

Huo in the hospital knows well the harm of smoking. "Quitting smoking is not easy," she said. "Many people need to feel pressure to kick the habit."

Qiu is happy he has quit. "Hopefully I will never smoke again."

"Establishing good habits takes time," said Liu Zejun, director with Beijing Patriotic Health Campaign Committee. "Only after the habit is formed will the environment really improve."

"It is my dream to have the same conversation about national smoke-free law two years later," said Pratta. "People keep saying that it cannot be done and the law won't be enforced [...] But when we review the survey, we know that people do want a national smoke-free law."

(APD)