Editorial on Hong Kong Smuggling Trial (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

                             Friday  June 26  1998

                Editorial 
                        Smoking gun 

                Tobacco companies like to portray themselves as
                having turned over a new leaf. Shaken by the extent
                to which smoking is on the decline in most of the
                world, coupled with a string of embarrassing
                disclosures during litigation in the United States,
                they seek to convey the impression of having grown
                more responsible in their behaviour.

                Promises not to encourage young people to smoke
                abound as do pledges of new funds for health
                education. But such Good Samaritan behaviour is
                repeatedly undermined by instances such as those
                which came out of the Court of First Instance
                yesterday.

                The culmination of the Jerry Lui Kin-hong case
                produced a fresh demonstration of the way in which
                some firms still put their narrow commercial
                interests ahead of any moral duty to the public, just
                as they have in the past.

                It is no secret that Hong Kong is a major centre for
                cigarette smuggling, given its proximity to the
                mainland which imposes tariffs of up to 240 per
                cent on imported tobacco products.

                Any tobacco company which agrees to supply
                billions of dollars worth of duty-not-paid cigarettes
                can have little doubt about the true reasons behind
                any such request. Nor can it be under any illusion
                that those cigarettes which are not smuggled across
                the border will end up anywhere other than on
                Hong Kong's thriving black market.

                As Mr Justice Wally Yeung Chun-kuen observed,
                that amounts to assisting international criminals.
                Those remarks, made while sentencing the former
                British American Tobacco (HK) Ltd executive,
                were directed at his ex-employers. But evidence
                given in other court cases suggests it is far from the
                only cigarette company in such a position.

                That is unacceptable by any standards. If the
                tobacco companies want the public to believe that
                they are now behaving better than they have in the
                past, they must immediately apologise and sack
                those of their staff who connived in such illegal
                activities.

                If they choose not to do so, that will only strengthen
                the case for further legislation to curb such
                activities.

                

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