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According to the American Lung Association, "Over 300 million men in China more than the entire U.S. Population are smokers." Tobacco is one of the few products that is used and marketed all across the world, both in developed and developing countries. The majority of Asian countries lack the laws and regulations used in the U.S. to control tobacco marketing, including those targeting children, making it easy for tobacco companies to promote their products overseas. China in particular offers the tobacco industry a huge population base and a growing economy.

Dr. Fred Sakurai has been the medical director of the "Ningen Dock" program sponsored by Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, California, since its inception 12 years ago. "Ningen Dock" is a Japanese concept that loosely translates into "Human Dock"; sort of a shipyard for people. Their focus is on providing culturally based preventive health care, primarily to Asian Americans and U.S. based employees of Asian companies. According to Dr. Sakurai, preventive health care results in far better outcomes than the more reactive health care model practiced in America. Tobacco cessation is one of the key elements of preventive health care.

Many researchers are concerned about how tobacco affects the health of Asian people in particular. Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death among Asian Americans. Heart disease and stroke together accounted for more than a third of all deaths among Asian Americans in 2002. As many as 30 percent of these deaths were a direct result of tobacco use. In 1998, lung cancer claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Asian American men and 700 Asian American women.

One group that is leading the fight against tobacco use is the American Legacy Foundation (www.americanlegacy.org) located in Washington, D.C. The foundation develops programs and provides grants to community based organizations that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among minority populations such as Asian Americans. Two of their most successful programs are truth, a national youth smoking prevention campaign, and the EX (as in ex-smoker) Campaign, which is creating a national alliance to help smokers quit.

Laura Hamasaka is the VP of Program Development and Technical Assistance for the foundation, overseeing key aspects such as prevention, cessation, youth activism, and dissemination of their program information. When asked about the issue of tobacco use at the community level, Ms. Hamasaka

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