Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan says more resources will be provided for smoking cessation services for both those who smoke traditional cigarettes or electronic cigarettes.

As outlined in the 2018 Policy Address, the Government will submit proposed legislative amendments to ban the import, manufacture, sale, distribution and advertisement of e-cigarettes and other new smoking products.

Elaborating on the initiatives at a press conference today, Prof Chan said more research needed to be done on whether smokers would revert to smoking traditional cigarettes after e-cigarettes are banned.

“I think this may be a myth, whether people who don’t smoke e-cigarettes would actually go back to smoke traditional cigarettes, really, we need some study.

“Study results showed us that if people are prevented from smoking one way or another, for example, if we increase tax or if we expand our no smoking areas, many people would actually quit smoking.”

She added the Government has been increasing its resources on smoking cessation services in the past 10 years.

“In fact, if you talk about smoking cessation services, the Hospital Authority actually has over 60 smoking cessation clinics. The Department of Health also subsidises a number of charity organisations to provide free smoking cessation services.”