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Just Saying
Hong KongHealth & Environment
Yonden Lhatoo

Just Saying | Nice job banning e-cigarettes, Carrie. Now for a total ban on all tobacco to show true grit

Yonden Lhatoo applauds the chief executive’s bold move to outlaw e-cigarettes and new smoking products, but urges her to show real courage by taking on the bigger guns and slapping a wider ban on traditional tobacco

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Electronic cigarettes being showcased at VapeFair, an annual industry event, in Kuala Lumpur in December 2015. The Hong Kong government has proposed a ban on e-cigarettes and similar products. Photo: AFP

I must say I’m growing exponentially resentful about having to run the gauntlet of smokers and “vapers” congregating around Times Square every time I head towards my office.

They’re a cumulative health hazard and a public nuisance in one of Hong Kong’s showpiece tourist and business centres, discarding cigarette butts everywhere and polluting the air with toxic fumes that the rest of us end up breathing.

With all due respect to their supreme individual right to poison their own lungs and risk cancer or heart disease, I draw the line at having second-hand smoke blown directly into my face in the process. On such occasions I have to resist the urge to yank their electronic or analogue cigarettes out of their faces to demonstrate my displeasure.

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E-cigarette smokers in Admiralty, Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee
E-cigarette smokers in Admiralty, Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee
So it was a much-needed breath of fresh air to see Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announce in her policy address this week a total ban on e-cigarettes and other newfangled smoking products. It was a bold U-turn that took everyone by surprise because, until now, the government had been willing only to restrict the sale of vape pens, smoking oils, atomisers and what-have-yous to minors – like regular tobacco products.

Outlawing the advertisement, manufacture, import, sale and distribution of e-cigarettes and “heat-not-burn” smoking products sends the right message that this city is serious about protecting the health of its citizens.
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