Q Do you think the anti-smoking legislation is too harsh?
The tobacco industry clearly points to the importance of brand value in the promotion of tobacco to its clientele, which is mainly young people. Three key aspects of the government's new proposals to strengthen tobacco control legislation will necessarily damage tobacco brand value: smoke-free work and public places; elimination of all environmental advertising, including hawker stalls; and pictorial health warnings.
The tobacco industry argues that the brand is an unassailable part of its intellectual property, but as a carefully crafted vehicle for recruiting young people to nicotine addiction, it must be a prime target for effective public health action.
The industry lost its intellectual-property argument in the Canadian courts, but the Hong Kong government's proposals for restrictions on tobacco sponsorship specifically allow the use of brand names on 'non-tobacco products'. This deliberately permissive stance is not a public-health approach and will create a new and unrestricted field for tobacco sponsorship and, ultimately, maintenance of brand value.
The tobacco industry must be absolutely delighted with the prospect of this seriously flawed legislation. If legislators want effective tobacco control, they should remove this clause from the bill.
As the work of the Bills Committee progresses, the government and legislators will be targeted with a variety of threats and spurious alternatives to essential public-health measures, including the pretence that ventilation will afford protection.
As you indicate in your leader on September 23, the attempts to derail the legislation and the arguments that we should continue to poison the hospitality workforce with tobacco smoke will, if they succeed, eventually make Hong Kong look more like a dirty backwater rather than a world city.
