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Complete smoking ban|The government aims to reduce the smoking rate to 7.8% by 2025, requiring about 200,000 people to quit smoking

2021-10-31T14:08:35.059Z


The Legislative Council passed earlier amendments to the law to prohibit the import, manufacture, sale, distribution and promotion of alternative smoking products such as e-cigarettes and heating cigarettes. The Secretary for Food and Health, Chen Zhaoshi, also stated in his blog today (31st) that the Bureau


The Legislative Council passed earlier amendments to the law to prohibit the import, manufacture, sale, distribution and promotion of alternative smoking products such as e-cigarettes and heating cigarettes. The Secretary for Food and Health, Chen Zhaoshi, also stated in his blog today (31st) that the bureau will immediately Carry out follow-up work to reduce the smoking rate and further reduce it to 7.8%, reaching the goal of "Towards 2025: Hong Kong's Non-communicable Disease Prevention and Control Strategy and Action Plan".


Looking at the latest data from the Census and Statistics Department, the number of traditional cigarette smokers in 2019 was 637,900, accounting for about 10.2% of all people aged 15 or over in Hong Kong, which is 2.4 percentage points away from the target.

Based on the data for that year, more than 220,000 people would need to quit smoking to achieve the goal.

Some groups concerned about heating tobacco are worried that after the new law comes into effect, some heating smokers may re-smoker traditional cigarettes, which may not help reduce the smoking rate. Even if the tobacco tax is increased, some people will still smoke.


Target to reduce smokers by 30% by 2025

In 2018, the government announced "Towards 2025: Hong Kong's Non-communicable Disease Prevention and Control Strategy and Action Plan" in order to reduce the social burden of non-communicable diseases in Hong Kong by 2025. It defines 9 goals, one of which is This item is related to cigarettes. Taking the smoking rate in 2010 as the baseline, the smoking rate of people aged 15 or over will be relatively reduced by 30% by 2025.

According to the statistics of the Census and Statistics Department, in 2010, the number of smokers reached 659,300, accounting for approximately 11.1% of people aged 15 or over at that time.

If the ratio is reduced by 30%, that is, by 2025 or before, the ratio will reach about 7.8%, which is the target mentioned by Chen Zhaoshi.

The new ban on the import, manufacture, sale, distribution and promotion of alternative smoking products such as e-cigarettes and heating cigarettes is expected to take effect as soon as April next year.

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Nearly 640,000 people smoked traditional tobacco

The Census and Statistics Department does not survey the smoking situation in Hong Kong every year. The latest statistics are collected from April to July 2019 and released in mid-2020.

At that time, there were 637,900 traditional cigarette smokers, accounting for 10.2%. Based on the population size at the time, if the target of 7.8% was to be reached, the number of smokers would need to be 414,600, which is still 223,300 short of the target.

In fact, the data in 2019 is slightly higher than that in 2017, when the ratio was 10%, and there were only 615,000 smokers.

It is worth noting that the above figures do not include e-cigarettes and heating cigarettes, and the government did not make statistics on these in the 2010 survey.

If you include e-cigarettes, heating cigarettes and other tobacco products, the number of smokers in 2019 will reach 652,000, accounting for 10.5%.

Concerned about the heating of the composition, smokers will switch to traditional cigarettes

Regarding the government’s desire to reduce the rate of smokers to 7.8%, Lu Qilu, convener of the Heated Tobacco User Concern Group, said that some traditional smokers in the past would switch to heated tobacco, but after the new law is passed, some people may start smoking again. Traditional cigarettes may not help reduce smoking rates.

As for the increase in tobacco tax, he said that some people did not intend to quit smoking themselves, and some people "cannot quit smoking." As a result, they still smoke after the tax increase, and the results may not necessarily be obvious.

He suggested that the government should set up an independent committee to investigate the effectiveness of relevant policies, and believes that regulation of heating tobacco is more effective than a comprehensive ban, and it is more effective to reduce the proportion of smokers of traditional cigarettes.

Full ban on smoking | Chen Zhao issued an early warning: the promotion of tobacco tax and other 3 recruits reduced to 7.8% of smokers banning heating cigarettes | Concern groups worried about the rampant illicit cigarettes to promote the establishment of a review committee to review the effectiveness of the new law to ban e-cigarettes | Smoking 15-year female smoker calendar A friend died of cancer twice with acupuncture and moxibustion, smoking addiction and ban on e-cigarettes | Experts urged to strengthen the promotion of smoking cessation services, more exposure to ethnic minorities and female smokers to ban new types of cigarettes | Using traditional cigarettes and e-cigarettes at the same time, it is more difficult to quit smoking

01News

Source: hk1

All news articles on 2021-10-31

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