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A bill to amend the Smoking Ordinance proposes to subject anyone who brings in, imports, makes, sells, distributes or promotes new smoking products in Hong Kong – including e-cigarettes, heat-not-burn products and herbal cigarettes – to a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a fine of HK$50,000 if convicted. The first reading will take place on February 20. Photo: Edward Wong
OpinionLetters

Letters | Hong Kong vaping ban is based on sound reasoning: but it could go further

  • E-cigarette use is not conclusively associated with helping tobacco smokers to quit
  • If the likelihood of giving rise to a black market is a reason to allow the sale of certain products, what about drugs or endangered animals?
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I am writing in response to Alice Wu’s commentary on the government’s recent e-cigarette ban, “E-cigarette ban is clueless, elitist government at its worst (February 17)”. Ms Wu criticises the ban as bizarre and ill-reasoned because, first, the greater of two evils – traditional cigarettes – have not been banned altogether; second, because people will be encouraged to buy from the black market; and, finally, because there is apparently scientific evidence that using e-cigarettes is effective in helping people to quit smoking.
Let me start with the latter argument first. Ms Wu’s interpretation of the research paper she cites is misguided. The observed effect of e-cigarettes on smoking cessation is due to regulation of the amount of use and close monitoring of the subjects by clinical professionals. A free market in which e-cigarettes are available without professional intervention is not going to help smokers quit the habit. I recommend that Ms Wu and readers take a look at a systematic review published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine which shows that, in a real world setting, e-cigarette use is associated with a 28 per cent reduced odds of smoking cessation.

I also have doubts about Ms Wu’s line of reasoning which goes: if a ban leads to a flourishing black market, it should not be imposed at all. There are plenty of banned items in many societies for which a black market flourishes, including but not limited to heroin, endangered animals and human organs. Should the trade in all these be legalised? If not, do the laws on these items, to use Ms Wu’s own words, “just encourage people to buy from the black market”?

I concur with Ms Wu that this ban may appear weak as traditional cigarettes are not being further restricted at the same time. Nevertheless, it is too simplistic to claim that the ban lacks legitimate justification.

Decisions to ban one thing and to allow another depend on many factors. In this case, e-cigarettes are a new product, whereas traditional cigarettes have existed since the mid-19th century. Many older people in Hong Kong have already developed a pathological dependence on them. Telling these people to quit this month or the next is simply inhumane.

Are e-cigarettes more harmful than tobacco? Health risks explained
On the other hand, banning the newly introduced e-cigarettes will prevent many, especially young people, from having another option to harm themselves and adding to the future burden of the health care system, without bringing tremendous pain and suffering to existing smokers.

What the government should have done together with this ban is outlined the future further actions it plans to take against tobacco use, so that people are prepared that – one day down the road – tobacco use will be completely banned.

Francisco T.T. Lai, PhD candidate in Public Health, CUHK

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Ban on e-cigarettes is based on sound reasoning, howevermore should have been done
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