David:

　　Over the last thirty years, smoking in the United States has undergone a major transformation. In the 1940s and 50s smoking was very popular. The impression created in the movies and on television was that smoking was an elegant thing to do. In the 1970s the US medical profession began to realize the true cost of smoking to a person's health. By the early 1980s the perception had become that smoking was dangerous. If you went out to eat back then, you’d find smoking and non-smoking sections in the restaurant. There were still many smokers, so the size of the two sections was about the same. Over time, though, the non-smoking sections in restaurants became bigger and bigger.

　　In those first years of this transformation, people debated the effects of smoking. Tobacco companies contended that smoking didn't really harm people's health. Ultimately, however, a consensus emerged that smoking was in fact hazardous to smokers. And by the mid-1980s people came to understand that smoking was hazardous not only to smokers themselves, but also to the people around them. Thus the issue became more serious, and Americans started to reject smoking in greater numbers.

　　From a public health and public policy perspective, the question of how to deal with smoking became very important in the United States. The US government basically has adopted a policy of gradually banning smoking in most settings. Smoking is now banned in all federal government buildings, including, for example, the White House, the Capitol and embassies; to smoke, workers in these buildings have to go outside. What's more, smoking is also banned in most other public and recreational venues, such as movie theaters and museums. And that goes for airplanes too. By now smoking indoors (except in the privacy of one's home) is pretty much against the law.

　　These days American smokers don't look like they did before. In the past, smokers came in all shapes and sizes, but nowadays smokers come mostly from the lower educational, cultural and economic rungs of US society. It’s true that some young women smoke to make what they regard as a kind of fashion statement. The women in the TV series SexandtheCity are an example of this: they think smoking is "cool". But the great majority of Americans look down on smoking. If someone is smoking near his child, for example, an American parent may well say, "Look at you! Smoking next to a child! That's terrible!"

　　Victor:

　　China has the greatest number of smokers in the world. It's said that habitual smokers constitute a third of the population. Chinese smokers come from both the higher and lower levels of society. There is a huge number of smokers in small towns and villages, and also in state-owned enterprises, but fewer in joint ventures and private firms. Most of today's smokers come from the traditional groups, though there are also smokers among the "new white-collar" workers and young people. They regard smoking as a mark of being different from the crowd... The number of people who smoke to relax is holding steady, but the number smoking for social reasons is declining. Smokers are beginning to feel some pressure to quit, though it's not yet that serious. If you smoke, people will think of you as being from the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum.

　　People often urge smokers to quit on health grounds, but generally to no avail. But if someone's girlfriend, say, doesn't like smoking, then the boyfriend may feel compelled to quit. The results of a survey conducted by the German periodical Der Spiegel are interesting: putting a warning label on a pack of cigarettes not only doesn't reduce the number of would-be smokers, but actually leads to a rise in sales. In a book by an American author entitled TheCigarette, the author found in his research that simple threats don't result in quitting. Rather, quitting results from friendly encouragement from within the smoker's social circles. Simple appeals to the health benefits are regarded as passé. So we need a better approach... As a member of the Beijing People's Political Consultative Committee, I once recommended that the government agencies in a certain district of the city implement a ban on smoking in public venues, but my suggestion was politely rejected by the Patriotic Hygiene Committee.

　　David:

　　In the United States, the last president who smoked was John F. Kennedy [1961-63]; we haven't had a smoker in the White House since then. This image of a smoker doesn't accord with what the American people expect of presidents nowadays.

　　Victor:

　　Few current Chinese leaders smoke either. I hope that China's civil servants, especially the younger ones, will follow this good example.