YOU SEE THEM everywhere. Huddled on street corners, in office lobbies, outside shopping malls and in stairwells; fidgety figures clustered around ashtrays and litter bins, a symbol of the tie that binds them - nicotine. These are smokers, pariahs of the modern age, public health enemy No 1. But if the fag fraternity feels marginalised now, things are about to get worse.
The tobacco war is heating up. With the Asia-Pacific region a target of beleaguered cigarette manufacturers, left wheezing after being shut out of traditional markets by a litany of lawsuits and litigation, Hong Kong has emerged as a key battleground. At stake are the hearts, minds and lungs of the people.
The Government plans to ban smoking inside workplaces, restaurants, bars and other indoor public venues. The proposals have ignited a fierce debate, yet they may be just the thin end of a very big wedge for nicotine addicts. The Council on Smoking and Health (COSH) has outdoor areas in its sights next, making any place where people gather with restricted mobility, such as bus stops and escalators, smoke-free. But, having long argued that segregated smoking areas don't work indoors, it seems likely this would lead to a blanket ban outdoors.
The final frontier is the home. Untouchable? Not necessarily. For a start, those who have domestic helpers could find their homes classified as a workplace. Some anti-smokers are already campaigning to curb smoking in households where children live.
'Smoking at home harms children, and we should protect children,' says Marcus Yu Yin-sum, executive director of COSH. 'At this stage it's not possible, otherwise people would have nowhere to smoke. We can't control smoking at home, but we can use education and publicity to discourage it. The ultimate goal is to create a smoke-free Hong Kong, but that will take years.'
In the question of where to draw the line between the rights of smokers and non-smokers, the frontline is permanently shifting. And it's the tobacco companies and their customers who are consistently fighting a rearguard action between successive retreats. Since tobacco control legislation was first passed in 1982, amendments have been made almost yearly and gradually extended bans from cinemas to banks, supermarkets and shopping malls.
The global trend towards no-smoking legislation began in the United States and Canada and has spread as far as Australia, India and South Africa, with differing results. If approved, Hong Kong's ban on smoking indoors would be among the most stringent in the world, tougher than Singapore which prohibits smoking in most indoor public places, but allows it in bars.