Taiwan on Sunday announced the decision to ban indoor smoking, becoming the 17th state in the world and the second country in Asia to take the move to protect people's health. Under the new law, smoking is banned in all other public facilities such as hotels, restaurants, karaoke bars, Internet cafes and transport stations.

 

Smoking increases the risk of developing lung cancer and other lung diseases and outs you at risk of developing cancer of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, bladder, pancreas, kidney and stomach. There are only a few exceptions of the rule: locations with indoor smoking rooms that have independent air conditioning and bars that open after 9 p.m. and forbid the entry of people under the age of 18.

 

Smoking bans are intended not only to cut smoking rates but also to reduce secondhand tobacco smoke. Some experts believe that reducing exposure to smoke can cut the risk of heart attacks.

Among other problems, tobacco smoking causes lung cancer, emphysema and cardiovascular disease. The World Health Organization informed that smoking cigarettes killed 100 million people around the world in the previous century and cautioned that in the 21st century it could kill one billion people worldwide.

 

According to the Lung Cancer Alliance, lung cancer killed 160,390 people last year, an average of 439 people a day in the United States. It is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, killing more people annually than breast, prostate, colon, liver, kidney and melanoma cancers combined. Most of those deaths, about 90 percent, were caused by smoking, according to the US National Cancer Institute.