Hong Kong spends more than a billion dollars a year on medical treatments for smokers who suffer from various smoking-related diseases.
The local death toll from smoking has soared to 5,500 a year. It is evident that to improve public health, smokers should be given more help to kick the habit.
According to a 1999 Department of Health survey, about 850,000 adults in Hong Kong smoke daily. However, almost 80 per cent - 680,000 smokers - claimed to have no intention of stopping in the next six months.
A recent survey by the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health found that about 20 per cent of boys and 13 per cent of girls between the ages of 12 and 16 were regular smokers.
Smoking kills 5,500 people in Hong Kong every year (18 per cent of the total annual deaths registered) and damages the health of tens of thousands of others. The medical costs incurred in the hospital treatment of major smoking-related diseases, such as lung cancer and coronary heart disease alone amount to nearly a billion dollars annually. If the current smoking pattern persists, public health is seriously threatened in the long run. Some smokers think that smoking is a private matter. They may not realise that non- smokers exposed to their cigarette smoke are forced to inhale harmful chemicals.
The damage to health caused by passive smoking is equally damaging to non-smokers.
