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Meanwhile, Huang warned that greedy tobacco merchants have also begun to fix their sights on women.
The number of female smokers aged between 15 and 24 is on the rise, said the 2010 China Tobacco Control Report published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The situation is especially serious in large cities such as Shanghai, where statistics from 2002 to 2009 show the smoking rate among women aged 20 to 39 increased from less than 2 percent to over 7 percent while the national average was about 3 percent, according to a study by the School of Public Health at the Shanghai-based Fudan University.
The study focused on 2,000 residents in Shanghai and revealed that while the number of men smoking remained stable over the years, the number of female smokers tripled in the same period.
According to the 2010 China Tobacco Control Report, China's domestic tobacco companies imitated their overseas peers with marketing strategies aimed at women.
Zheng Pinpin, an associate professor at Fudan University in Shanghai who led the study, said, "When the traditional market of men-oriented cigarettes was saturated and even began to decline, tobacco companies made greater efforts to entice women to smoke."
According to Wu Yiqun, an anti-tobacco activist from the Beijing-based ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development, a non-governmental organization committed to smoking control, there are four methods that have proved effective in controlling smoking in Western countries: raising taxes on tobacco companies so that they have to increase the price of cigarettes; banning smoking in public places; printing large health warnings on cigarette packets; and banning tobacco companies from sponsoring sporting, cultural or charity events.
During this year's full session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, in March, Minister of Health Chen Zhu revealed that the government was planning to increase taxes on mid- and low-end cigarettes in a bid to curb expanding tobacco consumption in the country.
"We notice that most of the new smokers are young adults, who consume low-end cigarettes and are sensitive to prices. As such, I'm confident that the tax hike will effectively reduce the number of smokers without affecting fiscal revenues," he said.
Mounting health concerns pushed authorities to raise the levy on cigarettes from 6 to 11 percent in May 2009. But the move didn't curb cigarette use as some experts expected.
The retail price of cigarettes didn't go up accordingly because the CNTC gave up its profits to maintain stable cigarette prices, according to Wu.
"Only when retail prices go up along with a raised levy on cigarettes could the number of smokers be affected," said Yang Gonghuang, Director of the CDC's Tobacco Control Office.
International studies have found that when tobacco prices rise by 1 percent, the number of smokers goes down by about 0.4 percent.
In China, about half of the smokers consume low-end cigarettes priced below 5 yuan ($0.79), according to a CDC survey in 2011.
Meanwhile, some anti-smoking lawmakers and political advisors proposed putting graphic health warnings on cigarette packs, similar to those found in other countries.
The graphic warning labels typically picture diseased lungs, damaged hearts and gangrenous toes, an abrupt contrast to the beautiful mountains, rivers and historical sites often pictured on Chinese cigarette packs.
"People have the right to accurate information about the harm of smoking through health warning labels on tobacco products," said Ma Li, Director of the NPC's Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee.
In China, only 23.2 percent of adults believe that tobacco use would cause strokes, heart attacks and lung cancer, Ma said.
"Packaging labels are the easiest, most effective and most direct way to warn about smoking. Large graphic images are very effective at keeping would-be smokers at bay, especially young people," Ma said.
Furthermore, a public smoking ban was also included in China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), which was adopted by the NPC in March last year. Meanwhile, some Chinese cities have also been passing legislation to control smoke.
In March, Beijing unveiled a draft of anti-smoking regulation, stipulating that smoking will be completely banned in indoor public places, offices and on public transportation. There will be heavier fines of 50 yuan ($7.91) to 200 ($31.62) for violators, and institutions or businesses that do not enforce the ban will be fined 5,000 yuan ($790.51) to 10,000 yuan ($1,581.03).
Cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong Province and Harbin in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province are also considering local anti-smoking regulations.
Meanwhile the MOH is looking to include smoking cessation counseling in the country's basic healthcare system and provide coverage to drugs that reduce dependence on smoking, Minister of Health Chen revealed at a chronic disease seminar held in Shanghai on March 31.
"I strongly support adding smoking cessation counseling and medicine to the healthcare system," said Vice Minister Huang. "If we begrudge spending now, we have to pay more in the future because smoking is a major cause of many diseases."
Huang said that the cost of helping a person quit smoking is about 500 yuan ($79.05) to 2,000 yuan ($316.21), but lung cancer treatment costs would be more than 100,000 yuan ($15,810.28).
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