Anti-smoking HKU expert suggests categorizing cigarettes as a drug

Cigarettes should be categorized as a drug, a University of Hong Kong health expert suggested, as he threw his support for the government's smoke-control “endgame” and noted there is no absolute freedom when it comes to public health. 

On an RTHK program on Saturday, Daniel Ho Sai-yin, associate professor at HKU’s School of Public Health, said it is absurd that tobacco products have yet to be banned by authorities after poisoning citizens all these years. 

Ho also defended the government’s smoke-control “endgame,” which proposes banning the sale of tobacco products to people born after a certain date, which he thinks doesn’t strip citizens of their human rights. 

“If we are to ban children born after a specific date from eating vegetables, fruits, or going to the movies, it doesn’t make sense at all (but), what we are now discussing is that we don’t allow you to hurt yourself. I don’t think this can be seen as stripping people of their human rights." 

“When it comes to public health, there never is absolute freedom,” Ho went on to say, giving the example that all drivers must put on their seatbelt. He also recalled that during the pandemic, unvaccinated people didn’t have the freedom to go to a restaurant. 

Ho, also a member of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health, said it would be best to implement the strategies in Health Bureau’s consultation document as soon as possible, including banning people from walking while smoking. 

He pointed out that authorities do not have much time left to achieve the goal of bringing down the smoking prevalence to 7.8 percent by 2025. 

Another guest on the program, legislator Peter Shiu Ka-fai, warned against imposing extreme measures, like raising the penalty for littering to HK$100,000. 

He also questioned if it is fair to raise the tobacco duty to a very high level so that grassroots consumers cannot afford cigarettes and lose the right to choose [to smoke or not]. 

“I definitely support the direction of lowering the number of smokers. Yet, people should discuss what smoke-control measures to introduce,” Shiu said.