Smoking is forbidden in public places, but it continues to damage health. Banning the sale of cigarettes is a logical next step to reduce the incidence of lung cancer and end passive smoking.

Government measures to restrict smoking in Hong Kong have reduced, but not yet eliminated, cigarette smoking. According to the various Household Surveys published by the Census and Statistics Department, the prevalence of current daily smokers aged 15 and above fell from 23.3 percent in 1982 to 10.7 percent in 2012.

The effects of past as well as current smoking are evident in Hong Kong's statistics for lung cancer, which is the most common cancer in men and the third most common in women, reflecting the sex gap in smoking behavior. If lung cancer can be massively reduced by a complete ban on cigarette sales, we should do this now. The same goes for the other fatal conditions, such as heart attacks, caused by smoking.

At the same time, the vast majority of people should have the right to breathe clean air wherever they are. Despite the current ban on smoking in public places, this is still not entirely the case.

For non-smokers - and especially for the many ex-smokers who are even more sensitive to smoking than non-smokers - it is wonderful to be able to travel in planes without enduring the fug of tobacco smoke. If you ended up with a seat at the back of a JAL flight a couple of decades ago, it would be impossible to breathe, as the - mostly male - Japanese chain-smokers would congregate there. In China in the 1970s, I remember being plied with free cigarettes on CAAC planes. (China, to its credit, later became the first country in the world to ban smoking on all domestic flights.)

Now it is possible to work in a smoke-free environment in every office and to enjoy food and drink in indoor restaurants where nobody can smoke over you or blow smoke over strangers at neighboring tables. Fortunately, Hong Kong has never had the habit, common on the mainland, of smoking throughout the meal.

On the other hand, there is the worldwide phenomenon of smoking outside buildings, particularly around entrances to office blocks and in front of shop windows. Looking at a window display with smokers blocking your view and blowing smoke over you is not a pleasant shopping experience.

Even worse, another area of banishment is the open-air caf. If the weather is nice, why should non-smokers not also be allowed to enjoy dining outside? At the moment, if you want to be sure of not being smoked over you have to sit inside, which is blatant discrimination against non-smokers.

Banning cigarettes in Hong Kong would assist the mainland's drive against smoking. There are over 300 million smokers in on the mainland. With levels of air pollution in mainland cities many times above the danger level, you would think anyone who further endangered their life by filtering this filth to make it even filthier would have to be insane.

Hong Kong has often been a model for change on the mainland, especially during the past three and a half decades of economic reform. As more and more tourists from the mainland visit Hong Kong, there is an opportunity to set an example of clean air which can have a healthy influence in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

So let's do it. From a specified date sufficiently far in the future to allow time for preparation, such as Jan 1, 2015, no cigarettes are to be sold in Hong Kong. Smokers will be provided with full support in the form of counseling, nicotine patches, comforters, Smokers Anonymous memberships, chewing gum and/or anything else they may need to help them join the ranks of non-smokers. There should be a phasing-in period to give time to educate smokers and set up the machinery for prosecuting those who peddle this poisonous drug. Punishments should be appropriately harsh.

Some will argue that banning cigarette sales will be like prohibition of alcohol in the US in the 1920s, providing opportunities for the development of organized crime around cigarette smuggling. They forget that this only happened in the US because the authorities there were unable at the time to prevent widespread official corruption, including, for example, the entire Chicago police force. Hong Kong has ICAC, a world model for fighting corruption. Besides, whereas a large proportion of the US population wished to continue drinking alcohol, less than 11 percent of adults in Hong Kong smoke, and many of those would no doubt welcome an opportunity to kick the habit.

Lastly, there is the objection that banning cigarette sales would diminish government revenues. But already tax is avoided on the one-third of all cigarettes that are sold illegally in Hong Kong. And the object of taxing cigarettes is not to raise money but to discourage smoking. An outright ban would be more effective.

The author spent many years studying and writing about the Chinese economy for the EIU and then more long years as an OECD official working in partnership with the Chinese central government.

(HK Edition 01/17/2014 page9)