Smoke On This!

Just hitting my quota for the day.

No seriously. Smoke on this or you will be fined! Good ‘ol China. Nothing says, “We’re ready to a be a global leader” more than forcing state officials to smoke like the characters on Mad Men.

Officals in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter million packs of locally made cigarettes annually or risk being fined, state media reports.

Bro, WTF.

“The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax,” said Chen Nianzu, a member of the Gong’an cigarette market supervision team, according to the paper.

Thank you for your unbiased analysis, Mr. Cigarette Market Supervisor. I’m sure that if I interviewd the guy over at the local coffin manufacturing plant he would say, “Killing people will boost the local economy, so do it.” Off the top of my head, I can’t imagine that forcing a small group of people to smoke 250,000 cigarettes would have any adverse effects whatsoever…

China has 350 million smokers, of whom a million die of smoking-related diseases every year.

Oh. In a related story, a coffin manufacturer was seen chuckling.