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SEOUL: The Supreme People’s Congress of North Korea on Wednesday (November 4) introduced smoking bans in some public places to provide citizens with “hygienic living environments,” state media KCNA reported Thursday.
The tobacco ban law aims to protect the lives and health of North Koreans by tightening legal and social controls over the production and sale of cigarettes, KCNA said, citing the legislature.
The law stipulates that smoking is prohibited in specific places, such as centers for political and ideological education, theaters and cinemas, and medical and public health facilities, KCNA said.
North Korea has high rates of tobacco smokers, with 43.9 percent of the male population smoking in 2013, according to the World Health Organization.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is known as a chain smoker who is frequently seen with a cigarette in hand in photographs in state media.
Kim was seen taking a cigarette break at a train station in the southern Chinese city of Nanning in 2019 as he was on his way to Hanoi for his second summit with US President Donald Trump.
