Letters | How the tobacco tax helped me quit smoking

Readers discuss the effectiveness of raising the tobacco tax in lowering the smoking rate, and a factor affecting the birth rate in Hong Kong

Reading Time:2 minutes

Smokers place their cigarette butts inside a rubbish bin in Wan Chai in July 2023. Photo: Elson Li

Published: 2:30pm, 24 Mar 2024

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In his 2023-24 budget speech, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po announced a 31.5 per cent increase in the tax on tobacco (60 HK cents per cigarette). This year, he announced a rise of about 32 per cent (80 HK cents per cigarette), taking the price of a pack of cigarettes to more than HK$90.

Research has shown that taxation is a powerful tool for reducing smoking among low-income groups. Those who smoke a pack a day would end up spending almost HK$3,000 (US$384) a month, a substantial sum of money, especially for low-income workers. They would surely need to cut back.

According to the Tobacco and Alcohol Control Office of the Department of Health, after the tobacco tax increase was announced in the budget on February 28, the weekly average number of people calling its hotline needing help with quitting smoking rose by nearly four times compared to three months ago.

Some have criticised the raising of the tax, saying that it would drive chain smokers to pirated cigarettes. I myself had been a chain smoker for more than 40 years. After a substantial increase in the tobacco tax about a decade ago, I considered buying pirated cigarettes.

But I wasn’t comfortable doing that. I had been a law-abiding person all my life. So I decided to quit, and I did it all at once. Yes, I am now both a law-abiding person and a non-smoker.