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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2020-12-12 07:00
Last update date: 2020-12-12 07:00
The Smoking and Health Committee published a research report on Thursday (10th) and found that 45% of smokers were unable to quit smoking after using heated cigarettes for half a year. This explains that heated cigarettes cannot alleviate smokers’ nicotine addiction and refutes the tobacco industry’s claims of heating. Tobacco can help smokers to quit smoking, and called on the Legislative Council to pass the "Smoking (Public Health) (Amendment) Bill 2019" as soon as possible to completely ban alternative smoking products including e-cigarettes and heated cigarettes.
Of course, even if smoking bans are necessary for public health, the authorities must carefully balance them so as not to impose excessively strict regulations on personal life.
The Heated Tobacco Concern Group urges the government to designate smoking areas as soon as possible, and promote policies that can benefit both smokers and non-smokers and truly contribute to public health.
(Photo/Photo by Ou Jiale)
Although the committee dismantled the propaganda tactics of tobacco companies, the ban on heating cigarettes still needs to be discussed from the perspective of overall public health, that is, whether the ban on heating cigarettes will directly lead to a drop in smoking rates.
Since the statistics, the daily smoking population in Hong Kong has steadily declined from 23.3% in 1982 to 10.2% this year.
It is worth pointing out that after the advent of heating cigarettes in 2014, the overall downward trend in the smoking rate in Hong Kong has not reversed. It seems to reflect that personal smoking choices are more affected by economic, personal health or family factors, rather than smoking products on the market. species.
Another public health consideration is the impact of secondhand smoke on others.
The Legislative Council quoted the British Health Protection Agency’s assessment that the nicotine content measured in the heating smoke is 70% to 84% of the nicotine content in the traditional cigarette smoke; and the second-hand smoke concentration (sub-micron particles) released by the heating smoke is also Compared with traditional cigarettes, the smoke in the environment is 4 times less.
In other words, although heating smoke also contains the harmful components of traditional cigarettes, and its second-hand smoke will also have a negative impact on others, but its harmful components are always less, and it is not a bad thing for smokers to switch to heating smoke.
Even though the committee has raised concerns about the popularity of heated cigarettes among young people, heated cigarettes and traditional cigarettes are alternatives. Even if the former is banned, the problems caused by traditional cigarettes cannot be dealt with. Therefore, from the long-term goal of a total ban on smoking, it is more realistic The method is to expand the scope of smoking bans, first to protect the public from the effects of second-hand smoke, and then increase the economic cost of smoking, so as to truly "induce" smokers to quit.
For example, Bhutan, Mongolia, Kazakh and other countries have long banned people from smoking in public places, and Japan also has a "no smoking on the road" ordinance, which strictly requires smokers to smoke in designated "smoking areas" on the street to prevent "locomotives". "Walking in the streets is worthy of Hong Kong's reference.
In addition, tobacco tax is the biggest economic motivation for smoking cessation. Hong Kong’s tobacco tax only accounts for about 67% of retail prices, which is still not as high as the 75% recommended by the World Health Organization. The retail prices are also much lower than Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada and Singapore. In other places, there is still room for upward adjustment in the future.
Since the implementation of the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance in 1982, Hong Kong's tobacco control efforts and pace have not caught up with the international standards, and there is much room for improvement.
The current controversy over heating cigarettes is mainly about whether they should be completely banned together with e-cigarettes. However, neither of them is directly related to the general direction of reducing the smoking rate. The authorities must think deeply about whether to "take the lesser of two evils" in tobacco control work. Not a good practice.
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