Baby's First Heater

Andrew Jacobs:

About 350 million of China’s 1.3 billion people are regular smokers, more than the entire population of the United States, and even though 1.2 million people die each year from smoking-related causes, there is a widespread belief that cigarettes hold some health benefits. A cigarette in the morning is energizing, many smokers will declare, and even when confronted with scientific reason, they will cite Deng Xiaoping, an inveterate smoker who lived to 92, and Mao Zedong, who lived to 82.

China produces a third of the world’s tobacco, with more than 400 domestic brands offered at Beijing’s ubiquitous tobacco shops. During a debate over antismoking measures last year, Zhang Baozhen, a vice director of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, warned that “without cigarettes the country’s stability will be affected.”

via Unwell.