Lai See | Time for Hong Kong to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes

Plain packaging for cigarettes has been introduced in Australia, is likely to occur in France and is being mooted in Britain. So far the Hong Kong government has shown little interest in it. Interestingly, studies have shown that the measure in Australia has coincided with the country's biggest fall in smoking rates in decades with the daily smoking rate falling by 15 per cent between 2010 and December 2013.

Nor did any of the tobacco industry's dire predictions come true. Tobacco manufacturers fought hard to prevent the policy becoming law, claiming that plain packs would lead to a boom for black market sales of potentially harmful illicit cigarettes, and would also harm small retailers.

Hong Kong, "Asia's World City" as the government likes to brand it, has so far shown little in the way of "world city" thinking on this and has been content to sit on its hands. Calling yourself a "world city" is supposed to mean more than having a fancy logo on your letterhead.

The implication is that the city governance is forward looking, proactive, looking to act smart, being ahead of the curve, setting the benchmark and so on. Is it so hard to introduce plain packaging in what should be a continuing proactive campaign against what is one of the world's most virulent public health menaces?

We were almost overwhelmed by nostalgia after reading a piece about Robert Law in the June 2001 edition of magazine. Law's claim to fame, it will be recalled, was to be the last official to knock back an Environmental Impact Assessment and to decline an Environmental Permit for a government infrastructure project. The project, the Kowloon-Canton Railway's Lok Ma Chau Spur line, was vetoed in 2000 on the grounds that it would have done, "irreparable damage to one of Hong Kong's last wildlife preserves".