The remarks came after the global body last week awarded its “World No Tobacco Day Award” to Lo, in recognition of the city’s tobacco control progress, while raising public awareness over the harms from smoking.
“World No Tobacco Day” falls on May 31, and the WHO selects individuals or organisations each year from members of each of the six WHO regions that have demonstrated “outstanding” achievements in tobacco controls for the award.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with RTHK, Lo noted the city’s smoking rate fell from 9.1 percent in 2023 to 8.5 percent last year, and that the city’s efforts in regulating alternative tobacco products “have been successful”.
“Actually this award is definitely not for one individual, it’s a recognition of Hong Kong’s efforts in controlling tobacco, especially the work done in recent years,” he said.
“Of course managing the overall smoking rate is one of their considerations, but [they also look at whether] there are also new innovative measures or control measures for alternative products, such as e-cigarettes. These are their focus areas,” he added.
Separately, the health minister said the implementation of the city’s current “10 tobacco control measures” has been smooth over the past few months.
This includes banning the possession or usage of alternative tobacco products such as vapes in public areas, a regulation which took effect at the end of last month.
Lo said authorities have already ramped up inspections at smoking hot spots, and recorded 39 violation cases over the past month — all from local citizens who possessed a small amount of alternative tobacco and were fined.
“We pay attention particularly to crowded areas and areas where we have observed a large number of people using alternative smoking products in public spaces, such as footbridges. These are the areas where we’ll ramp up inspections and monitoring,” he said.
“But we don’t want to require a large number of staff from the anti-smoking department to chase after people to issue warnings in these areas. We hope that our citizens will develop a mindset to obey the law so that the number of warning tickets issued will gradually decrease,” he added.
Lo also noted since the import of alternative cigarettes was prohibited in 2022, the city has so far seen nearly 4,000 violations, with half of the cases being successfully prosecuted.
Looking ahead, Lo said the city would continue to refer to policies recommended by WHO as well as that elsewhere to further manage smoking, such as the “smoke-free generation” legislation in the UK, which bans the sale of tobacco products to people born after January 2009.
