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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-04-01 06:30
Last update date: 2021-04-01 06:30
On Tuesday (30th), the Legislative Council’s Bills Committee on the Smoking (Public Health) (Amendment) Bill 2019 held its fifth meeting. However, representatives of the Food and Health Bureau and members of the Food and Health Bureau continued to fight over the regulation of heated tobacco.
Although the new Chairman of the Smoking and Health Committee, Tang Xiuqi, in an interview with "Hong Kong 01" a few days ago, he also said that because "the release of heating cigarettes is easy to have a portal effect", legislators should support the legalization of a total ban on new smoking products in the future, but how to do it in society To build a consensus and consider the livelihood of newspaper vendors is also worthy of consideration by officials.
Tang Xiuqi said that he is optimistic that the bill can be passed this year, and said that he believes that the vast majority of parliamentarians will also consider the health of the public.
When talking about the controversy of heating cigarettes, Tang Xiuqi not only claimed that tobacco companies have a huge lobbying power, and even beautified heating cigarettes in the market, and legalizing them will bring a "gateway effect." People who have no smoking habit will also be exposed to it. After heating cigarettes, they switch to traditional cigarettes. Therefore, smoking heating cigarettes and electronic cigarettes should be regarded as illegal.
Many smokers switched to heating smoke.
(Photo by Luo Guohui/Profile Picture)
Can heating smoke be processed afterwards?
The controversy between heating cigarettes and electronic cigarettes continues. The main reason is that the former's harm to the human body is still controversial.
In the past, the Legislative Council quoted the assessments of the health authorities in the United Kingdom and the United States, pointing out that although the nicotine content measured in the heated smoke mist is 70% to 84% of the smoke content of traditional cigarettes, the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is much higher. For traditional cigarettes.
However, members of the legislative council such as Liu Guoxun of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of China, Wu Yongjia of the Economic Democrats, and Shao Jiahui of the Liberal Party hope to ban e-cigarettes first, and then deal with heating cigarettes later, and denounce the government's total ban on heating cigarettes without sufficient scientific basis.
At a meeting held on Tuesday, the government submitted a report on the comparison between heating tobacco and traditional tobacco products.
In addition to the conclusions of the World Health Organization, the report stated that "the existing evidence cannot infer the long-term health effects of exposure to mainstream aerosols due to the use of heating fumes", but also quoted an analysis by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration, stating that "heating fumes will cause users Long-term exposure to various known and unknown poisons.”
Therefore, a more pertinent conclusion is that even if there is no evidence that heated tobacco is "healthier" than traditional tobacco, it is difficult to prove that it is more harmful.
If the splitting process can pass the bill as soon as possible, it is undoubtedly worthy of consideration by the government.
Another focus of controversy is what Tang referred to as the "gateway effect."
Although an earlier research report by the University of Hong Kong proved that the use of heated cigarettes can not reduce nicotine addiction, but this does not mean that heated cigarettes will cause more people to get bad habits.
Statistics show that the daily smoking population in Hong Kong has been steadily declining, from 23.3% in 1982 to 10.2% last year. After heating cigarettes were sold in Japan and introduced to Hong Kong in 2014, they have not been seen in the past few years. The smoking rate tends to bottom out.
Conversely, an individual's smoking choice is mainly influenced by factors such as financial burden, family wishes, and personal health.
Expedient benefits to build consensus
Excluding the controversy surrounding health, what is less discussed in society is the impact of cigarette sales on newspaper vendors.
The newspaper industry in Hong Kong has been declining. Coupled with the impact of the epidemic, many newspapers’ income has been greatly reduced. However, the sale of small commodities such as profit seals and bottled water is difficult to make a living. Therefore, the industry has always hoped that the government can legalize heating cigarettes so that they can have something new. Source of income.
At the same time, given that more and more citizens have switched to heating cigarettes in recent years, the situation that traditional cigarettes accounted for nearly 50% of newspaper vendors' income will pass sooner or later.
Although Nguyen Huixian, Deputy Secretary-General of the Food and Health Bureau, pointed out that government policies should not be affected by the interests of the industry, and that the lobbying work of the tobacco industry is very strong, so it is not acceptable to discuss with the industry to avoid its influence.
However, officials should also consider the economic impact of the smoking ban.
Even if the heating fumes are treated afterwards, they are not completely released. At this stage, they are aimed at expedient measures that have a consensus.
At present, more than 60 countries and regions in the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Japan, have already enacted legislation to allow the legal import of heating smoke. The Hong Kong government can also refer to the laws and regulations of various countries to minimize unidentified risks.
For example, in the European Union’s "Tobacco Products Directive", the authorities not only strictly limit tobacco emissions, such as nicotine and carbon monoxide, etc., not to exceed a certain level, but also require products to carry health warning pictures.
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