North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly has introduced smoking bans in public areas to try to create “hygienic living environments” for its citizens, state media KCNA reported on Thursday. The new tobacco prohibition law will tighten the legal and social controls on the production and sale of cigarettes by banning smoking in certain venues, including political and ideological education centers, theaters and medical facilities to try to bring down the smoking rate, which hovers around 44 pecent for the male population, according to the W.H.O. The move comes despite leader Kim Jong Un’s well-documented chain smoking habit.
