While cigarette sales have fallen across much of the world, China has moved in the opposite direction. The trend is driven by the immense power of China's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, which both regulates and profits from the industry. And as China's economy slows and traditional revenue sources like land sales decline, the government has become more dependent on tobacco revenue. According to Stanford anthropologist Matthew Kohrman, a faculty affiliate with APARC who studies smoking in China, this institutional reality is compounded by social factors. Citizens are turning to nicotine as a "mood modulator" to cope with economic stress, a habit made easier by the weak enforcement of smoking restrictions, Kohrman tells the New York Times. Read the article >