S. Korea's adult smoking rate dips

The smoking rate of South Korean adults continued to drop in the first half of the year amid the government's anti-smoking campaign, the health ministry said Wednesday. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, the smoking rate of males here dropped to 39 percent from 42.6 percent a year earlier. The smoking rate of females was more than halved from 3.9 percent to 1.8 percent. The survey was conducted on 3,000 people aged 19 years or older throughout the country. It showed males in their 30s had the highest smoking rate of 51.2 percent, up from 48.5 percent in the first half of last year, while the smoking rate of males in their 60s showed the largest drop of 9.8 percentage points from 29.9 percent to 20.1 percent. Nearly six out of every 10 respondents said they tried to quit, but 55.7 percent of them also said they were unable to do so, apparently due to the lack of government support or measures to help them quit. Out of all respondents, 27.3 percent said the best way to discourage smoking was to expand no-smoking areas and impose heavy penalties on violators with 57 percent of respondents also saying the newly introduced smoking-violation fine of 100,000 won (US$95) was reasonable. Many of the respondents also agreed with the health ministry's move to raise the price of tobacco as a way of encouraging people to quit as 41 percent of them said the current price of cigarettes, about 2,500 won a pack, was too cheap. The average price that would discourage people from buying a pack of cigarettes would be 8,559 won, they said.