Professor TH Lam, Emeritus Professor cum Honorary Clinical Professor of HKU School of Public Health, wrote a newspaper column entitled 吸煙害命 戒煙健康 加稅救命 積福平安 published in Ming Pao on 31 January 2023. He advocated increasing tobacco taxation, which has been frozen for 8 straight years in Hong Kong, to motivate the 0.6 million smokers to quit smoking and save lives. Professor Lam also referred to our previous research, which showed that the tobacco industry had been exaggerating the estimates of illicit cigarette consumption in Hong Kong to argue against raising the tobacco tax. He added that tobacco taxation not only saved the lives of at least half of the 0.6 million current smokers in Hong Kong but also protect non-smokers from passive smoking and youths from taking up smoking.

You can read the newspaper column here.

Featured journal article:

Chen J, McGhee SM, Townsend J, Lam TH, Hedley AJ. Did the tobacco industry inflate estimates of illicit cigarette consumption in Asia? An empirical analysis. Tob Control. 2015 Jun;24(e2):e161-7. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2014-051937.