North Korea's state news agency highlighted the hazards of smoking last week, linking tobacco use with increased chance of getting infected with Covid-19. “Media” outlets in the hermit nation intensified calls for people to stop smoking since the “parliament” met and adopted new anti-smoking measures in early November. North Korea regularly pays lip-service to various anti-tobacco themes since it became a signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which it ratified in 2005.
Smoking rates are considered high in North Korea. A WHO report for 2017 says that 46.1% of all men above 15 smoke and 0% of woman. Woman are discouraged entirely from smoking and do not do so…at least in public.
On Nov. 4, North Korea held a meeting of the presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly and adopted an anti-smoking law that specifies places and buildings where smoking is prohibited.
It is unknown how the anti-smoking measures will influence the country #1 smoker, its dear leader Kim Jong-un, who is known to be a chain smoker. State media frequently runs photos of him carrying cigarettes and smoking in public. According to South Korean and U.S. officials who have met Kim, no one in the country, except for perhaps his wife, Ri Sol-ju, can tell him to quit. The totalitarian “Supreme Leader” is forcefully considered faultless and above the law with some considering him godlike.