Ban smoking in Hong Kong homes and cars to protect children, expert urges

An anti-smoking activist and community-health specialist has urged the government to ban smoking in cars and even homes to protect children's health.

Professor Lam Tai-hing was speaking after a new study, published yesterday, showed that second-hand smoke can make children prone to heart attacks and strokes later in life, in addition to other known risks such as lung cancer, middle-ear disease and respiratory disease.

Lam, professor of community medicine at the University of Hong Kong, said that while smoking in cars when children were present had been banned in some countries, so far no authorities had made a similar ruling for private households.

"Smoking in front of children should be seen as poisoning and abusing them," he said. "There are laws that protect children against being abused, why is it we don't consider second-hand smoking as a kind of abuse?"

Lam said Hong Kong so far had no legislation specifically to protect children from second-hand smoke.

The study, published in the European Heart Journal yesterday, said data from 2,401 people in Finland and 1,375 in Australia showed passive smoking led to a thickening of children's artery walls, ageing blood vessels by 3.3 years by adulthood.