Time for Hong Kong to turn up heat on vaping
- Such smoking products have gained a foothold in the youth market while a bill banning them remains stuck in the Legislative Council
The delay has allowed vaping to consolidate a foothold in the young market, according to anti-smoking campaigners, despite growing medical evidence that it may be just as harmful to health as traditional smoking. Nearly 86 per cent of a sample group of 283 current smokers aged 25 or below tried e-cigarettes or heated tobacco products in 2019-20, according to a survey by Youth Quitline, a smoking cessation hotline set up by the University of Hong Kong. The proportion has increased for the third straight year.
According to Dr William Li Ho-cheung, director of the cessation programme and associate professor at HKU’s school of nursing, contributing factors include increased online marketing from e-cigarette and heated tobacco companies, no age barrier and cheaper pricing. “Many youngsters started smoking these [products] out of curiosity, peer influence, or the misconceptions that [they] are less harmful and can use them to quit traditional tobacco,” Li said.
Meanwhile, regulators in China, the world’s biggest tobacco market, are seeking greater restrictions on e-cigarettes. Hong Kong may have had much more success in reducing tobacco consumption – the latest estimate of smokers in the population is about 10 per cent – but it risks undoing it among the younger generation without a vigorous education and enforcement campaign against vaping.
While tobacco sale and consumption remain legal, a ban on alternatives that are unlikely to be any more dangerous will seem hypocritical to some. The vaping and heated tobacco industries argue that their products are less harmful. Nonetheless, a ban has support across the health sector. There is no longer any excuse for inaction. The government and lawmakers should show a greater sense of urgency.
