Imagine this: One day you wake up, and there are no advertisements in newspapers and magazines, no commercials on television and no lightboxes in the MTR stations. Suddenly, a government bigwig appears on the tube and says, “All these measures have been carried out for the sake of the citizens. The products ruin your lives, so we should fight tooth and nail to ban all advertisements.” Now ask yourself this: If the products are bad for us, why doesn’t the government ban the products instead of the ads?

Such is the situation today. This month, the Health and Welfare Branch is going to sponsor the Smoking (Public Health) (Amendment) Bill. It would prohibit direct advertising on billboards and signs, as well as in newspapers and magazines. The use of tobacco brandnames on non-tobacco products, such as clothes, would also be banned.

Even teenagers know that smoking is hazardous to health, quote unquote. Many researchers have demonstrated the harmful effects on smoking. Several of them even have shown that tobacco has more serious adverse effects than a banned drug — cocaine. Should the government keep a firm and consistent policy towards public health, the officials concerned would have known exactly what to do for the public.

Unfortunately, the government has a vague and confusing standpoint. It promotes the importance of public health on the one hand, but allows the sales of tobacco on the other. In fact, by sponsoring the amendment bill, not only is the policy on public health unclear, but the freedom of commercial enterprise is infringed.

Democracy implies the freedom to receive information, which is composed of basic commercial freedom and intellectual property rights. All legal products should be allowed to develop marketing campaigns, shouldn’t they?

The government’s ambiguous attitude towards the tobacco industry is actually a projection of its unclear position towards the policy of public health. Without a consistent policy, how can we citizens follow? How can public health education work? There is less than two years to the change in sovereignty. The Hong Kong government should hurry up and develop a comprehensive plan on health education so that it will not wind up as a lame duck.