ANN/THE STAR – What was supposed to be an anti-smoking campaign at a culinary school in Guizhou, China, became a source of ridicule as participants ended up inhaling large amounts of second-hand smoke, Sin Chew Daily reported.

Video footage of the event at Guizhou New Oriental Cuisine Technical Institute showed staff and students placing confiscated cigarettes in several large woks in the school field before setting them on fire. Thick acrid smoke began to fill the area and started spreading on campus.

The move by the school to des­troy cigarettes by burning them has drawn intense backlash online, with Internet users dubbing it as a “second-hand smoke disaster”. Students at the institute joked that they ended up enjoying a “group smoking session” for free.

Non-smokers, however, were not pleased and complained that they were forced to inhale second-hand smoke without warning. Local authorities have launched an investigation into the matter. The event was organised in con­­junction with the World No Tobacco Day on May 31.

-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin