Tobacco ban threat

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said on Thursday it was worth considering banning traditional tobacco products, according to a story at ejinsight.com citing reports by Apple Daily and the Hong Kong Economic Journal.
Lam’s statement on a possible tobacco-products ban came the day after she announced the Government’s intention to impose a ban on electronic cigarettes. She had been asked during a radio interview why, if it were concerned about public health, the Government wanted to ban e-cigarettes but not traditional tobacco.
Her latest remarks were an apparent about-face. Lam said on Wednesday it was not proper to ban abruptly a long-existing commercial activity, referring to the sale of traditional tobacco products.
The chief executive said that she was bold enough to impose a total ban on traditional tobacco, but that there were a lot of pros and cons that needed to be considered before doing so.
She said also that the prevalence of smoking among people aged 15 and older had dropped to 10 percent from 20 percent in the 1980s, indicating that Government efforts to reduce smoking had been successful.
Meanwhile, the Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee said the policy of banning the importation, manufacture, sale, distribution and advertisement of e-cigarettes had been finalized and would not be changed.
There are concerns that e-cigarette smokers will be forced to return to traditional cigarettes once the ban takes effect, but Chan said that was mere speculation and not supported by data.
A study conducted last month by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World showed more than six in 10 adult smokers said they relied on e-cigarettes to help them quit smoking.
Chan said authorities would step up efforts at tobacco control after implementation of the e-cigarette ban.