奧巴馬承認戒煙尚未成功
US President Barack Obama may have just made life more difficult for cigarette makers, but he is not above sneaking a smoke every now and again.
Obama, who has publicly struggled to quit smoking, said he still hasn't completely kicked the habit even after signing a law this week that will likely set tough new rules for the tobacco industry.
"As a former smoker I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No," Obama said at a news conference.
"I don't do it in front of my kids, I don't do it in front of my family. I would say that I am 95 percent cured, but there are times where I mess up," he said.
The new law gives the US Food and Drug Administration the power to strictly limit the manufacturing and marketing of tobacco products.
At a White House signing ceremony Monday, Obama said that he was among the nearly 90 percent of smokers who took up the habit before their 18th birthday.
"Once you go down this path it's something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed is so important because what we don't want is kids going down that path in the first place," he said at the news conference.
Nearly 20 percent of Americans smoke and tobacco use kills about 440,000 people a year in the United States due to cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other ailments.
美國總統奧巴馬最近讓煙草商的日子不好過，而他自己仍然時不時地偷偷吞雲吐霧。
奧巴馬本週簽署一項法令，可能制定新的更加嚴格的煙業條例，儘管如此，這位公開宣佈努力戒煙的總統稱，自己還沒有完全改掉這個習慣。
奧巴馬在記者招待會上説：“作為一位前煙民，我一直在努力戒煙，是否有時也會把持不住呢？是的。但是不是天天抽，時時抽呢？當然不是了。”
他説：“我從不在孩子和家人面前吸煙，可以這樣説，在95%的情況下我都不會犯煙癮了，但我煩的時候還是想吸兩口。”
新法令賦予美國食品藥品管理局嚴格限制煙草類產品生產和銷售的權力。
奧巴馬本週一在白宮的法令簽署儀式上稱，他和其他近90%的煙民一樣，在18歲前就養成了這個習慣。
他在記者招待會上説：“一旦你走上這條路，就要不停地與吸煙抗爭了，這也正説明我們簽署的這項法令為什麼如此重要，因為首先我們都不想讓孩子們重蹈覆轍。”
近20%的美國人是煙民，每年有44萬美國人死於因吸煙導致的癌症、心臟病、肺氣腫以及其它疾病。
Vocabulary:
beabove: 不易受到..., 不屑於, 超出...之外
fall off the wagon: 戒煙/酒失敗，舊態復萌(on the wagon是指下決心戒掉惡習，如果沒有堅持住，就稱為off the wagon）
mess up：搞糟，陷入困境
