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The Red Cross Society of China launched a three-year Create a Smoke-Free Environment Program on Wednesday. The program, seed-funded with $9 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is expected to urge the Chinese government to more energetically support tobacco control and observe the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and change smokers' habits by educating nonsmokers on their health rights. As one of the main operators of the program, the Red Cross Society of China has set up an office with the foundation to coordinate the program, and it will also set up an expert panel to review specific plans, which will come from various parties, including government, social groups and companies, said Zhao Baige, executive vice-president of the society. Zhao said the money will be allocated toward research and promotion of tobacco-control models. "We need to know more about tobacco control in China, what kind of policies are needed, and what are the bottlenecks in its promotion," Zhao said. "We have run into great hurdles in promotion ... We also need to work out different tobacco-control models for cities and rural areas. For example, the model for Yunnan may be different from Beijing." According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey published in 2010 by WHO, 301 million Chinese adults smoke tobacco, and 52.7 percent of adult daily smokers aged 20 to 34 started smoking daily before the age of 20. What's more, seven in 10 nonsmoking adults were exposed to secondhand smoke in a typical week. | 
