Q Do you think the anti-smoking legislation is too harsh?
The legislation is not harsh enough and needs to be implemented now. Consideration should be given to adding nicotine to the list of illegal drugs like heroin since tobacco smoke kills more people than heroin.
The 86 per cent of Hong Kong people who do not smoke need to be protected from the highly toxic sidestream smoke of the 14 per cent who are committing slow suicide. The tobacco companies should be sued by the government as in the US to provide funds to pay for the treatment of the victims of their poisonous product.
Philip Morris, the tobacco giant, agrees with the medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases than non-smokers. There is no safe cigarette. It can be very difficult to quit smoking, but this should not deter smokers who want to give up. To reduce the health effects of smoking, the best thing to do is to quit; smokers should not assume that lower-yield brands are safer than full-flavour brands.
Women who smoke have increased risks for delay in conceiving, infertility, pregnancy complications, premature birth, spontaneous abortion and stillbirth. Public health officials have concluded that secondhand cigarette smoke causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, and causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, coughs, wheezes, middle-ear infections and sudden infant death syndrome.
James Middleton, Pat Heung
