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Smoking accessories for cessation? Mixed messages in Hong Kong
  1. Kwok Kei Mak
  1. Correspondence to Dr Kwok Kei Mak, School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; kkmak{at}cuhk.edu.hk

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The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, adopted in 2003, urges governments to enact and enforce laws to protect the general public from the harms of tobacco products.1 In Hong Kong, China, a high price has already been paid for smoking in terms of both human suffering and healthcare costs.2 Principally, this has been among men, but the increasing prevalence of young and female smokers poses a growing challenge for public health.3 While the Hong Kong government has made efforts to combat smoking by banning tobacco advertisements, extending non-smoking areas and raising tobacco tax, loopholes still exist.

Recently, a company has been promoting a wide range of smoking accessories called ‘Smokerhood’ that seems to be trying to create an ‘ideal smoker’ identity, a light and environmentally aware smoker. The name Smokerhood itself suggests the foundations of such an identity by conveying a sense of belonging—to a neighbourhood or brotherhood—which must be attractive to adolescents and young adults who are trying to …

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Footnotes

  • Competing interests None.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.