Smoking is a very important issue in the world and among teenagers. There is research that shows that immigrants to the US smoke even more than US citizens (Public Health Service, 1991). Since we at Galileo are all teenagers and mostly immigrants, we would like to do research on smoking in China, the U.S and among immigrants. We did a lot of research in books, magazines and the Internet, and then made a survey to see if smoking at Galileo H.S (a high school in SF) matches what the other research says.
             China is the most populous country in the world, with 1.2 billion citizens. Smoking is very common in China; over 350 million people are smoking. People can smoke everywhere: in school, theaters, department stores, museums and stadiums, and on public transportation and all domestic flights. In China, the numbers of cigarettes smoked daily has increased from 11 percent to 16 percent for men and from 9 percent to 10 percent for women since 1984 (Hammond, Ross 1988). The teen smokers in China are less than the teen smokers in U.S. In 1997 smoking in China was very high, but the death rate was low, because the Chinese people hadn't started smoked long enough yet. ShangHai province is where the most people smoke. "Results from the 1996 China National Prevalence Study document that both men and women now initiate smoking 3 years earlier compared with data from 1984 with men starting at an average age of 20 years and women at 25 years"(Hammond, Ross 1997)
             China is the biggest selling market for cigarettes. For example, one in three cigarettes smoked in the world today are smoked in China, and the Chinese consume were four times as many cigarettes as the next largest consumer, the United States of America. "From 1985 to 1992, cigarette consumption per adult dropped by 13% in highly developed countries, but at the same time increased by 20% in China. For every one less cigarette smoked in more developed countries...