Editorial | Campaign to stub out smoking in Hong Kong has to push on as numbers fall
- With daily rates of 9.5 per cent for people aged 15 years and over, the city has joined a global low-smoking club and its efforts will lead to a healthier future
Hong Kong has joined an elite club of low-smoking global regions with daily rates below 10 per cent for people aged 15 years and over. The figure of 9.5 per cent, or about 600,000 smokers, represents the culmination of decades of effort by officials and lobby groups.
But given the detrimental impact of cigarettes and other tobacco products to community health, the push towards zero has to continue apace. Extending no-smoking zones, targeting affordability and furthering education have to remain the basis of any strategy.
A single-digit smoking rate is rare among developed places, Sweden, with 6 per cent, and Norway, 9 per cent, being among the few lower.
But whether campaigning is the only reason for the drop from 10.2 per cent in 2019 is not clear; a suggestion that Covid-19 restrictions mandating the wearing of masks in public may have contributed makes sense.
That rule, in effect, means removing face coverings to smoke constitutes a violation liable to attract a fine. But as the disease is tamed and rules are relaxed, those accidental safeguards will obviously also disappear.
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Smoke-free generation: New Zealand to ban cigarette sales for people born after 2008
There was a corresponding surge in the number of people using e-cigarettes, but the ban on the import, manufacture, distribution and sale of such products that took effect from April 30 is likely to cause a decrease.