China : Smoke or Bust

In what is possibly the saddest method used to improve a shaky economy, the Chinese government has ordered officials to smoke some 250,000 packs of cigarettes every year or be forced to pay a fine, says News.com

The idea is to boost the popularity of a local cigarette brand called Huanghelou, which is facing competition from other brands, while also obtaining funds via the cigarette tax. Catch is, if the targets are not met within a year, they'll start fining people for it.

Sometimes, I think the Chinese government has it right, what with the amazing job they did with the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and then I see bytes like this and any nice opinion just flies out of the window.

Then again, I totally get what they're trying to do here. The article does say that about one million people die every year in China due to smoking. So by encouraging this, China not only gets dough, but kinda helps reign in its population as well. As far as population control methods go, you can't beat this one.
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