Hong Kong keeps smokers smoking

The Hong Kong government, in denying its citizens the right to access nicotine-containing vapor devices, might be failing to allow cigarette smokers the chance to reduce the risk that they take, according to a story by Alexandros Raptis for harbourtimes.com.

Raptis cites evidence from a new research paper, The Vapor Revolution: How bottom-up innovation is saving lives,which was presented at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club.

Co-written by Dr. Amir Ullah Khan and published by American think tank The Reason Foundation, the evidence suggests the Hong Kong government ‘may be putting the lives of Hong Kong’s over 600,000 smokers at risk by denying them a less harmful option to help quit’.

The report cites previous research showing that, when legally available, vaping displaces smoking – it does not promote it.

The vice president of the foundation, Julian Morris, raised the Holy Grail of the anti-smoking movement – the prospect of a total elimination of smoking within the next 30 years.

Such a switch could save eight of 10 billion life-years currently at risk from smoking.

Vaping was far safer than was smoking — and had the potential to replace it, if consumers were given the choice.