Editorial | Hong Kong’s new anti-smoking rules need to be implemented with care
Enforcement of a multipronged tobacco control regime will be a challenge. The government should seriously consider lawmakers’ suggestions
The legislation is aimed at further reducing Hong Kong’s smoking rate, now 9.1 per cent of the population. A schools organisation has called for tougher measures, including banning vaping devices. The new measures target substances in alternative smoking products, such as e-liquids or capsules, heat sticks and herbal cigarettes, but not devices used to consume them. “I hope the government will set a timeline to ban vaping devices to protect students,” Langton Cheung Yung-pong, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Aided Primary School Heads Association, told a radio programme.
Smoking is to be prohibited within three metres of the entrances to schools, childcare centres and hospitals. Some lawmakers also called on the government to prohibit the practice of “smoking while walking”, the bane of the non-smoking majority on the streets.
Most lawmakers were rightly not persuaded by arguments that banning alternative and flavoured tobacco products could harm the economy by discouraging tourism. Most tourists would be more likely to be discouraged if they believed the environment to be heavily polluted by tobacco smoke.
Enforcement of a multipronged tobacco control regime will be a challenge. In that regard, the government should seriously consider lawmakers’ suggestions to offer clear instructions on the city’s smoking rules in multiple languages at tourism hotspots and border control points, and to launch education and awareness efforts in schools ahead of the implementation of the new measures.