Study: ‘THE DRAGON BREATHES SMOKE’ – Cigarette Counterfeiting in the People’s Republic of China
Mar 14, 2011
Conclusions: In China, counterfeit cigarettes can be produced from tobacco of various levels of quality, second-hand tobacco or even waste. Some of the chemicals that are used to process the low-quality tobacco, such as sulphur and carbamide, are poisonous and may cause health problems to cigarette consumers.
According to recent estimates, up to 400 billion counterfeit cigarettes are produced in China per year (Chen 2009; Joossens et al. 2009).
