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The fallacy of this thinking is that tobacco money is not the only source of such sponsorship. In countries where advertising is banned, alternative sources of revenue have been developed. Indeed, this is going to happen when the phased ban on tobacco advertising in electronic media will be completed in Hong Kong by 1990.
Furthermore, tobacco is a health-endangering product which not only causes premature mortality, but also impairs our life quality by morbidity from tobacco-related diseases. We should not accept sponsorship from money earned by selling life-threatening, dubious, and undesirable products. We should not accept money for sponsorship where the sources are from drug trafficking, corruption, or triad activities. Likewise, we should not accept money from the tobacco industry whose products damage life and health.
While appreciating the immediate financial benefit to Arts and Sports from tobacco money, we must at the same time realize the less apparent but longer-term social costs to the community. Think of the costs to government and employers involved in medical and sickness expenses, loss from fire accidents, cleansing costs, and loss of productivity and pension costs. Think of the costs to the individual smokers in terms of the amount spent on buying cigarettes, time off work, and subsequent loss of income and the increase in insurance premium. Consider overall, the financial loss to the community far exceeds the small gain from tobacco sponsorship money, which is only available after deducting huge profit by the tobacco industry as the financial interest vested group.
(5) No legal right to advertise
Some may argue that tobacco is a legal consumer product and in the free enterprising world of Hong Kong, they should be given the right to promote and advertise for their products and brand names.
Yes, tobacco is so far a legal product, but it is not a safe product. It is dangerous to health, as evidence indicated since 1973, by the authoritative medical bodies from the UK and USA. Death will only come to light after a latent period of 10 to 20 years. But even for legal and safe products like most western medicines, advertising or promotion in any form to the less informed public is not permitted in view of the potent pharmacological and possible serious side effects that they possess. Likewise, tobacco, with its potent pharmacological action and addictive properties, should not be permitted to advertise to the public.
Tobacco promotion or advertising will mislead the public into believing that it is after all not so dangerous to health, because it is allowed by the government to advertise. This will undermine the impact of the anti-smoking efforts of the government. It may confuse the public and cast doubt on the validity of the health warnings.
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It is surprising to note that if tobacco were a safe product, why has not the tobacco industry taken up the case to court to sue the respective governments and medical authorities for defamation and libel for their damaging statements on their products or indeed their legal sale to the public. The fact that they had not done it shows that they realize that their products are harmful, but in order to safeguard their financial interest, they have to persist in their hopeless battle to make counter-attacks, or to solicit support by their ill-earned profit from numerous victims of smoking.
C. TOBACCO SPONSORSHIP IN HONG KONG
From the statistics available to me, the total Arts funding from government expenditure per annum amounted to Hong Kong $200M. (with the breakdown of Urban Council – $99M, Regional Council - $16M, Government through Academy for performing arts - $60M, and central government to art activities - $18M.) This constituted about 95% of all Arts funding from public government bodies. Only 5%, in monetary terms, of Art funding were from the private sector.
The Urban Council has stopped accepting sponsorship from cigarette companies since last year. The Regional Council has also re-emphasized their already taken stand by issuing policy guidelines for not accepting sponsorship for art or sports activities from companies whose products include tobacco. It was indeed laudable that these two municipal councils act in unison with the central government's anti-smoking policy in this important area.
Thus, only the private sector, which consists of 5% of the total funding, may become prey to the temptation of tobacco sponsorship. With the arrangement of alternative funding for this small group, the impact on arts activities will not be too significant.
For sports sponsorship, the total bill for government expenditure per annum came to HK$32.4M. (with breakdown of Urban Council - $12.9M, Regional Council - $9.5M, Council for recreation and sport – $9.94M). It is conservatively estimated that about 50% of sports sponsorship money is from the public sector, and the other 50% from the private sector. Thus, while the 50% of activities by the public sector will not take tobacco money, the other 50% of activities organized by the private sector will often become the target of solicitation by tobacco money. This is particularly vulnerable when the organizers are in their earnest to promote sports, seeing the immediate financial benefit without foresight to the longer-term costs to society. Sports with appeal to spectator audiences will serve as a means for advertising. Some small private sports clubs depend on tobacco money for their annual expenditure.
D. SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
The Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health, in line with World Health Organization recommendations, advocates a total ban on all tobacco sponsorship of sports and the arts as the ultimate goal. In fact, a bill has recently been
Page 142 of 185
Page 142 of 185
274
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
The fallacy of this thinking is that tobacco money is not the only source of such sponsorship. In countries where advertising is banned, alternative source of revenue has been developed. Indeed, this is going to happen when the phased ban on tobacco advertising in electronic media will be completed in Hong Kong by 1990.
Furthermore, tobacco is health endangering product which not only causes premature mortality, but also impair our life quality by morbidity from tobacco related diseases. We should not accept sponsorship from money earned by selling life threatening, dubious and undesirable products. We should not accept money for sponsorship where the sources are from drug trafficking, corruption, or triad activities. Likewise, we should not accept money from tobacco industry whose products damage life and health.
While appreciating the immediate financial benefit to Arts and Sports from tobacco money, we must at the same time realize the less apparent but longer term social costs to the community. Think of the costs to government and employers involved in medical and sickness expenses, loss from fire accidents, cleansing costs and loss of productivity and pension costs. Think of the costs to the individual smokers in terms of the amount spent on buying cigarettes, time off work and subsequent loss of income and the increase in insurance premium. Consider overall, the financial loss to the community far exceed the small gain from tobacco sponsorship money which is only available after deducting huge profit by the tobacco industry as the financial interest vested group.
(5) No legal right to advertise
Some may argue that tobacco is a legal consumer product and in the free enterprising world of Hong Kong, they should be given the right to promote and advertise for their products and brand names.
Yes, tobacco is so far a legal product, but it is not a safe product. It is dangerous to health as evidences indicated since 1973, by the authoritative medical bodies from UK and USA. Death will only come to light after a latent period of 10 to 20 years. But even for legal and safe products like most western medicines, advertising or promotion in any form to the less informed public is not permitted in view of the potent pharmacological and possible serious side effects that they possess. Likewise, tobacco, with its potent pharmacological action and addictive properties, should not be permitted to advertise to the public.
Tobacco promotion or advertising will mislead the public into believing that it is after all not so dangerous to health, because it is allowed by the government to advertise. This will undermine the impact of the anti-smoking efforts of the government. It may confuse the public and cast doubt on the validity of the health warnings.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 142 of 185
275
It is surprising to note that if tobacco were a safe product, why has not the tobacco industry taken up the case to court to sue the respective governments and medical authorities for defamation and libel for their damaging statements on their products or indeed their legal sale to the public. The fact that they had not done it shows that they realize that their products are harmful, but in order to safeguard their financial interest they have to persist in their hopeless battle to make counter attacks, or to solicit support by their ill earned profit from numerous victims of smoking.
C. TOBACCO SPONSORSHIP IN HONG KONG
From the statistics available to me, the total Arts funding from government expenditure per annum amounted to Hong Kong $200M. (with the breakdown of Urban Council – $99M, Regional Council - $16M, Government through Academy for performing arts - $60M and central government to art activities - $18M.) This constituted to about 95% of all Arts funding from public government bodies. Only 5%, in monetary terms, of Art funding were from the
private sector.
The Urban Council has stopped accepting sponsorship from cigarette com- panies since last year. The Regional Council has also reemphasized their already taken stand by issuing policy guidelines for not accepting sponsorship for art or sports activities from companies whose products include tobacco. It was indeed laudable that these two municipal councils act in unison with the central government anti-smoking policy in this important areas.
Thus, only the private sector, which consist of 5% of the total funding, may become prey to the temptation of tobacco sponsorship. With arrangement of alternative funding for this small group, the impact on arts activities will not be too significant.
For sports sponsorship, the total bill for government expenditure per annum came to HK$32.4M. (with breakdown of Urban Council - $12.9M, Regional Council - $9.5M, Council for recreation and sport – $9.94M). It is conserva- tively estimated that about 50% of sports sponsorship money is from the public sector, and the other 50% from the private sector. Thus, while the 50% of activities by the public sector will not take tobacco money, the other 50% of activities organized by private sector will often become the target of solicitation by tobacco money. This is particularly vulnerable when the organizers are in their earnest to promote sports, seeing the immediate financial benefit without foresight to the longer term costs to the society. Sports with appeal to spectator audience will serve a means for advertising. Some small private sports club depend on tobacco money for their annual expenditure.
D. SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
The Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health, in line with World Health Organization recommendations, advocates a total ban on all tobacco sponsor- ship of sports and the arts as the ultimate goal. In fact, a bill has recently been
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