Juche Says: Smoking Bad for Dear Leader

Michael C. Moynihan | August 1, 2007

If the famine doesn't kill you, the smoking will. The Telegraph reports that the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il, has banned smoking in Pyongyang:

In most cities, smoking bans are intended to protect the non-smoking majority from the minority who insist on lighting up.

In Pyongyang, the latest and most unlikely international capital to be subject to a ban, it is the other way round.

The ban is to protect one man from the effects of his puffing compatriots, but since that man is the reclusive North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, it is still likely to be vigorously implemented.

Kim's health has been the subject of intense speculation across the border in South Korea all year, and in particular since he was rumoured to have had heart surgery in May. Kim himself is said to have given up cigarettes - and brandy - on doctor's orders back in 2000.

Story on Kim Jong's-illness here.

My previous post on North Korea, cell phones and the death penalty here.

Comments

Abdul|8.1.07 @ 12:00PM|#

Maybe we could get everyone in China addicted to cigarettes, and the secondhand smoke would finally finish this guy off.

Oh, wait, everyone in China is already addicted to cigarettes.

|8.1.07 @ 12:03PM|#

Now North Korea if running to catch up with our liberty grabbing? Am I the only one here thinking he's on crazy pills?

ed|8.1.07 @ 12:05PM|#

This makes sense, as they have already banned caviar, truffles and fois gras from the masses.

Abdul|8.1.07 @ 12:12PM|#

they have already banned caviar, truffles and fois gras from the masses

They are allowed to be on the Atkins diet, provided they don't eat any protein.

ed|8.1.07 @ 12:28PM|#

Not quite. They can have protein, as defined by Dear Leader as "hay".

After the horses have eaten.

|8.1.07 @ 12:52PM|#

From TFA:

Kim's home, office and all other places he goes to have been designated as non-smoking areas. Even the highest-ranking officials are going outdoors to smoke," he said.

I think the headline may be misleading or some of the paragraphs contradict one another. Is it a ban on smoking around Kim, or is it a ban on smoking indoors in Pyongyang?

Kim Jong-il|8.1.07 @ 12:55PM|#

It's good to be the king.

Rhywun|8.1.07 @ 1:43PM|#

Is it a ban on smoking around Kim, or is it a ban on smoking indoors in Pyongyang?

Yeah, I didn't get it either. Just your typical sloppy journalism--patched together from various contributors, no doubt.

(And for the love of God, what is up with this 'deleted' business in the email and/or URL fields now? I have to clear one or the other every time I post. Grrrr.)

|8.1.07 @ 6:13PM|#

If we needed evidence that N Korea is every bit as developed, progressinve, and dedicated to true freedom as the West; this should about do it.

Jennifer|8.1.07 @ 10:43PM|#

The country probably just can't afford to buy cigarettes anymore.

|8.1.07 @ 10:50PM|#

The best possible death for Dear Leader would be to be for someone with a good pitching arm to hit him square on the head with a hand-sized South Korean electronic appliance.