Macao is ahead of the game when it comes to quitting cigarettes, the Macau Post Daily reports. In 2010, the World Health Organisation called for a 30 percent reduction in tobacco smoking around the world by 2025. Macao, however, has gone further and in less time.
In 2011, 16.6 percent of Macao’s population smoked tobacco cigarettes. By 2022, the Health Bureau (SSM) says that figure had dropped by 36 percent – meaning about 10.6 percent of people were smoking last year.
In a statement, the SSM noted that the city’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Law took effect in January 2012. Macao banned smoking from many public settings and limited the advertising of cigarettes. The SSM also highlighted the success of its smoking cessation clinics, which offer free support services to anyone trying to quit.
[See more: Smoking bans are helping Macao’s women quit the habit, but not men, a new study finds]
On the flipside, e-cigarette smoking increased over the past decade. The SSM said that four percent of teens aged between 13 and 15 in Macao had used e-cigarettes in 2021, up from 2.6 percent in 2015.
Amongst youngsters, e-cigarettes are more popular than traditional tobacco products, the bureau noted.
It did not reveal what impact the ban on manufacturing, distributing, selling, importing and exporting e-cigarettes – implemented in December 2022 – was having on those figures.
