THE TOBACCO MONOPOLY BUREAU in Dezhou in East China's Shandong province issued a letter calling on its employees to promote the sales of expensive cigarettes. Gmw.cn commented on Sunday:

The letter is well written, and the writers have obviously done their homework. But the letter goes too far. The bureau, as a government department, is in charge of administration and supervision of the tobacco production and sales, not sales promotion. The decline of tobacco sales, which is good news for public health, cannot justify the bureau's acting beyond its authority.

The letter demonstrates the head of the bureau does not know the limits of the bureau's ill-supervised power, and the government's hard-to-relinquish inclination to intervene in the market.

Also, the tobacco bureau system in China should not ignore its legal duty to control the use of tobacco, since China has the largest smoker population in the world, and many people die of illnesses related to tobacco use every year.

In many places, the tobacco bureau is actually the local State-owned tobacco corporation, which monopolizes the production and sales of tobacco. This double identity means, in most cases, the bureau will take sides with tobacco producers, for profit.