Hi! This story was originally from my second book, “Now I Know More,” in case it’s familiar to you! (I’ve made some slight edits because that came out in 2015!) — Dan

Tobacco To School

On May 12, 2008, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan, China. The earthquake and its aftershocks took the lives of nearly 70,000 people with another 20,000 deemed missing. An additional 375,000 people were injured. The region’s infrastructure was also badly damaged — estimates vary, but between five and ten million people lost their homes, constituting perhaps as much as 50% of the area’s population. In hopes of rebuilding the area, the Chinese government set aside the equivalent of nearly $150 billion, a huge amount of money — but probably much less than what was needed to return Sichuan back to its former state. Many private businesses rose to the occasion, finding funding and solutions for those affected by the tragedy.

That is why, as recently as 2015, some children in the area go to the Tobacco Hope Elementary School.

After the earthquake, tobacco companies were at the forefront of the effort to revitalize education in the region. The China Tobacco Company — working with an organization called Project Hope — opened 70 schools over the course of a year or so after the quake in the region. In exchange, the tobacco industry bought sponsorship rights. Schools come with textbooks, desks, pencil sharpeners, and a side of pro-nicotine propaganda; one school, by way of example, had the message “Work hard for society! Tobacco can help you become an achiever!” on its walls, according to Beijing Today.

The move was, of course, controversial. According to a survey by Peking University (via Business Insider), nearly one-third of boys under the age of 15 had tried a cigarette at least once. (Less than 10% of similarly-aged American children have lit up.) Among smokers, the average age of their first cigarette was age 10. In hopes of stemming the tide, tobacco advertisements are banned from newspapers, TV, and radio in China — so one would think that the walls of schools would be treated similarly if not more stringently.

But the tobacco industry wasn’t shirking from criticism. A spokesperson for the China Tobacco Company told Beijing Today that the company was just doing its part to help the region recover from disaster: “Tobacco firms should not be barred from contributing to social welfare simply because the cigarettes they produce are harmful to their user’s health.” For low-income areas, finding the 200,000 yuan (about $30,000 to $35,000) to open a Project Hope school was an otherwise impossible task, as no other sponsors popped up.

But despite the objections, the tobacco lobby wasn’t interested in stopping these sponsorships. Through 2011, they helped open more than 100 schools as well as a network of libraries, with more to come, And parents whose children use these resources seem okay with the arrangement. Wu Yiqun, a researcher and opponent of the tobacco-branded schools, told the Telegraph that “parents are actually very supportive of the tobacco companies. They think they are giving something back to society.” But Wu, who also noted that schools give out cigarette-shaped candy, cautioned that the tobacco companies “are just using charity as a front.”

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More About Smoking

Today’s Bonus fact: In the United States, there’s an organization called the American Legacy Foundation which runs a lot of anti-smoking ads. The American Legacy Foundation’s main source of income? The tobacco companies themselves. In 1998, four major tobacco companies entered into a settlement with the attorneys general of 46 states which, among other things, called for the creation of an anti-smoking media entity funded by annual payments from the cigarette companies.

From the Archives: How Smoking Gave PEZ a Boost: It’s not an accident that Pez dispensers look like cigarette lighters.

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And thanks! — Dan