Chief Executive Li Jiachao has formulated 110 "Key Performance Indicators" (KPIs) in his policy address, one of which is to reduce the smoking rate from the current 9.5% to 7.8% by 2025. It is reported that the government plans to further reduce it early next year. A public consultation on policies on smoking rates, including considering following New Zealand's example, bans the sale of tobacco to people born after a specified year, with anti-smoking groups suggesting that those born in 2009 or later should be "crossed".
The government plans to focus on protecting the "new generation of smoke-free generations", that is, primary and secondary school students aged 9 to 17. In fact, the smoking rate has also declined in recent years. A survey by the University of Hong Kong showed that in the 2020/21 academic year, there are still primary school students to smoke. The proportion of primary six students was 0.2%, a slight increase from 0.1% in the previous school year, and the former smoking rate was 2.3%, a slight decrease of 0.1% compared with the previous school year.
For middle school students, the rate of still smoking was 1.2%, which was lower than the 1.5% rate for the previous school year, and the rate of ex-smokers was 7.4%, which was a significant decrease from 9% for the previous school year.
The Food and Health Bureau of that year commissioned the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong to conduct a survey on smoking among primary four to six students from December 2020 to December 2021. It was found that the proportion of students who had ever smoked had a downward trend. The ratio dropped from a high of 2.8% in the 2014/15 school year to 2.3% in the 2020/21 school year, while secondary school students fell from 15.7% in the 2010/11 school year to 7.4% in the 2020/21 school year.
A 7-year-old boy has smoked his first cigarette
The survey shows that young people start smoking very early. 41.6% of the students from Primary 4 to Primary 6 said that they started the "first cigarette" at the age of 7 or before, and 21.6% of middle school students.
The survey found that although a high proportion of middle school students had tried smoking, there were not many persistent smokers.
Regarding the proposal of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health to ban people born in 2009 or after from buying cigarettes for life, Li Haoxiang, the Nethersole School of Nursing, CUHK Faculty of Medicine, who was the director of the Youth Smoking Cessation Hotline Program, agrees with the relevant measures, because smoking will bring too many risks and disadvantages. , considered a good start.
Although young people usually smoke less, "maybe from a few cigarettes to a pack a month", but many long-term smokers start at a young age, so it is very important to encourage young people to quit smoking.
Experts on teenage relapse: Knock back friends who bring him cigarettes may relapse
He pointed out that most of the reasons for smoking cessation are related to the financial burden, and the government has banned smoking in many places in recent years. Performance.
Since young people are not deeply addicted to smoking, they will focus on psychological counseling when encouraging them to quit smoking, such as teaching them the harms of smoking in a peer way, encouraging them to exercise more to increase their resistance to stress, and staying away from bad friends.
However, he admitted that although teenagers are not deeply addicted to smoking, relapse after quitting smoking is very common.
There is a non-smoking group
New Zealand proposes to ban the purchase of cigarettes for life for the new generation born in or after 2008
The New Zealand government announced at the end of last year that it plans to legislate within this year to ban the purchase of tobacco by a new generation of citizens, in order to achieve the goal of a nationwide smoking ban.
Legislation states that people born in 2008 or later will not be able to buy tobacco products locally for life, ensuring that younger generations do not start smoking their first cigarettes.
The local adult smoker rate is as high as 13%, and one out of every four cancers is related to smoking. Therefore, the government is determined to significantly reduce the smoking rate. The goal is to drop to 5% by 2025, with zero smokers as the ultimate goal. Target.
Long-term Tobacco Policy Concern Group: Education about the harms of smoking is far more effective than legislative restrictions
Lu Qilu, the convener of the Long-term Tobacco Policy Concern Group, questioned that the Hong Kong government's imitation of New Zealand's practice without a comprehensive anti-smoking strategy may lead to "speaking words" and even have the opposite effect, making the "banned" younger generation want to go When trying to smoke, he believes that educating the next generation about the harm of smoking is far more effective than legislative restrictions.
He said that he supported the government to add new thinking to tobacco control in Hong Kong by referring to the successful examples of foreign tobacco control.
However, it is worth noting that New Zealand has not banned the sale of e-cigarettes and heated cigarettes, and it also recognizes the harm reduction and substitution potential of these products under macro-control tobacco control, so that adult smokers have the right to make choices.
The smoking rate hits a record low, but it does not reach the ideal Chen Zhaoshi: More stringent no-smoking areas will be established. The smoking rate will drop to a new low of 9.5%. The person in charge of illegal smoking was also fined for e-cigarettes. Chen Zhaoshi urged not to patronize the black market tobacco. The final goal is to reduce the smoking rate to 7.8% in 25 years. And the Health Committee advocates raising the cigarette tax by 100% next year and banning the purchase of cigarettes for life for those born after 2009