Newspapers throughout Hong Kong are being bombarded by 'bleeding heart' advertisements from the Tobacco Institute ('Arrested. For opening an umbrella,' South China Morning Post, June 18) in a last ditch attempt to influence Legislative Council members prior to this week's Legco vote to strengthen existing tobacco laws.
Scaremongering techniques, and misleading ones at that, will not work with our legislators.
The Tobacco Institute claims that the proposed laws infringe Hong Kong's Bill of Rights. Yet the Government clearly stated before the Bills Committee that, based on legal opinion, they do not. The institute sat in on the Bills Committee hearings, so can best be described as suffering from selective deafness.
The industry is not even consistent with the figures it floats about. The Coopers & Lybrand report, commissioned by the 4As, states that about 1,000 small vendors on a minimum margin could lose up to 10 per cent of their total income, and an amount of $1,000 per month was suggested (even here, note the speculative nature of these figures).
Yet in the Bills Committee this figure had suddenly jumped to HK$6,000-$7,000 per month. These wild statements hardly inspire confidence about the credibility of economic forecasts coming from the tobacco industry and its supporters.
The truth is that tobacco control measures are good for Hong Kong's economy. Independent economists confirm that a ban on cigarette advertising is not likely to reduce either the total amount of money spent on advertising, or the total number of people employed in advertising or promotion. As if to prove the point, advertising expenditure is increasing in neighbouring countries with comprehensive bans on tobacco promotion (for example, Singapore, Thailand, Australia).