Time for city to turn up heat on vaping
The debate about e-cigarettes and their like versus tobacco has long been settled here. Health authorities and antismoking activists have prevailed in their claims that the former are potentially just as harmful and ultimately a path to tobacco addiction. As a result, more than two years ago, the government introduced a bill to outlaw the import and sale of new smoking products to the Legislative Council, where it remains stuck after the disruption caused by the social unrest of 2019 and the Covid-19 crisis.
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.