Chairman's Message
Welcome to COSH web site!
In accordance with our long-held principle, Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health (COSH) has been sparing no efforts in tobacco control to safeguard public health. Through multifarious education programmes, publicity events and research projects, COSH publicizes the hazards of tobacco, encourages smoking cessation and prevents smoking uptakes among children and the youth. COSH also proactively advocates the Government for strengthening the tobacco control measures to move towards the Tobacco Endgame goal.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the Government, public organizations, academic and education institutions, district and social welfare organizations, media and different stakeholders in the community for their unfailing support to COSH. We worked in joint hands and adopted a multi-pronged approach comprising of legislation, taxation, publicity, education, law enforcement and promotion of smoking cessation to contain the proliferation of tobacco use. It is encouraging to see that these measures have yielded positive results. Hong Kong’s smoking prevalence has dropped gradually from 23.3% since the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance enacted in 1982 to 9.5% now and is among the lowest in the world.
COSH will continue to strengthen the education, publicity and research, increase health consciousness and public awareness on virus prevention, and also promote smoking cessation to fight against the Coronavirus Disease 2019 together. To accelerate smoking reduction, COSH urges the Government to develop blueprint and time schedule for Tobacco Endgame, also put forward comprehensive tobacco control measures including imposing a total ban on alternative smoking products, raising tobacco tax substantially, expanding the statutory no smoking areas, banning tobacco product display at points of sales, increasing resources on smoking cessation, education and promotion, enforcement and combatting illicit cigarette trade for a smoke-free Hong Kong.
Henry TONG, BBS, MH, JP
Chairman
Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health