Law review aiming to ban e-cigarettes passes first reading

With 29 lawmakers voting “yes,” the law review proposal aiming at banning e-cigarettes in the city passed in a first reading yesterday in the parliament.

It will now go before committee meetings to have its provisions scrutinized before returning to the plenary for a vote on the details.

Lawmaker Becky Song was absent yesterday and president of the parliament Kou Hoi In traditionally refrains from voting, except in rare situations.

In her introduction, Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong emphasized that the law still has plenty of room for improvement, despite the ban on sales, advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes. The use of e-cigarettes in non-smoking locations and venues was also prohibited in 2018.

She supported her motion with statistical data. Ao Ieong presented figures showing that the number of tobacco smokers has consistently dropped in the past decade since the smoking law, officially referred to as the Legal System Preventing and Controlling Smoking, was promulgated in 2012.

The proportion of tobacco smokers over 15 years of age, she added, had dropped from 16.6% before the law was enacted to 10.7% in 2019. “Macau has been on par with the goal set by the WHO,” Ao Ieong said.

However, she continued, there have been new challenges for the task of smoking reduction. 

“We need to be continuously concerned and proactively responsive,” she stressed, citing a survey result showing that, in 2021, 4% of young people between the age of 13 and 15 years used e-cigarettes, in contrast to 2.6% in 2015. It was also higher than the proportion of traditional cigarette users in the age group (2.1%).

The secretary also emphasized that tobacco products inhaled through the mouth or the nose are as hazardous to health as e-cigarettes.

Nonetheless, members of the public questioned the ban on e-cigarettes, but not cigarette smoking in general, when the draft of the law review was first presented at an Executive Council press conference.

The confusion seems especially understandable, with the senior official comparing the hazards from smoking e-cigarettes with those from smoking traditional cigarettes.

At yesterday’s parliamentary plenary, lawmakers apparently found the proposed ban debatable.

Several lawmakers, such as Ip Sio Kai and Wang Sai Man, hinted in this direction. For example, Ip questioned why a general ban was not proposed when smoking e-cigarettes is more hazardous than traditional tobacco.

Separately, lawmaker Ron Lam questioned why there has not been any data on the importation of e-cigarettes.

In response, Ao Ieong admitted that she was aware of “stocks” of e-cigarettes and related products in private hands. Her plan is to start with controlling imports and move on to banning the use of the product.

Advertising will also be used to expand public awareness on the hazards of e-cigarette smoking. Ao Ieong said that some dishonest businesspeople would instill toxins or narcotics in e-cigarette liquids.

Besides the confusion stemming from banning one type of product and not the other, lawmaker Leong Sun Iok also questioned why banning smoking while driving was not proposed in the current draft.

Ao Ieong responded that the government would use anti-smoking education and advertising as a means of discouraging people from smoking while walking or driving.

Speaking about controlling the import and export of e-cigarettes, the senior official promised to work with the security forces to tighten control over the product. She announced that the government is planning to raise import and export taxes on e-cigarettes and related products to discourage private imports.