[Intl-tobacco] Hong Kong: Charity defends using tobacco industry cash

[Robert Weissman]

Charity defends using tobacco industry cash

by YENNI KWOK
Source: South China Morning Post, Monday, 12/4/00

 Charity group Caritas has been criticised for taking money from the
tobacco industry to pay for its youth anti-smoking campaigns.

The Tobacco Institute of Hong Kong, the industry's trade association,
donated $452,000 this year to Caritas Integrated Service for Young People
in Wong Tai Sin. The money is intended for 20 anti-smoking programmes
running until March, ranging from workshops in schools to schemes
targeting recent immigrants from the mainland. Similar schemes may be
launched next year in Caritas' Lam Tin division.

The institute has spent nearly $2 million on youth anti-smoking schemes
this year. It sponsored Commercial Radio's anti-smoking programmes this
year to the tune of $500,000, including backing a two-day youth camp for
100 teenagers.

However, the chairman of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health,
Professor Anthony Hedley, attacked the decision to accept tobacco money.

"It is a serious matter to give money to Commercial Radio or
non-governmental organisations like Caritas," said Professor Hedley.
"There is no place whatsoever for the tobacco industry in health-care. It
is only part of the industry's repositioning of itself as 'responsible
citizens'." He said the sponsorships were an attempt to get public support
for loosening control of the industry.

Charles Chan Chi-kwong, supervisor of the Integrated Service in Wong Tai
Sin admitted the decision to accept the money had created controversy. "It
was difficult to convince concerned bodies within Caritas to accept money
from tobacco companies," he said. "Some said it was like whitewashing the
companies."

Mr Chan agreed to accept the industry's donation because "we have common
interest to prevent juvenile smoking".

The Tobacco Institute's executive director Albert Chan Yu-chung also
defended the donation. "One should look at the programme itself," he said.
"What it contains is more important than who sponsors it."

A study of SAR teenagers last year found that 20 per cent of boys and 13
per cent of girls aged 12 to 16 were smoking. It was an increase of five
to six percentage points on a similar survey in 1994. Anti-smoking
campaigners have blamed cigarette companies for targeting young people.

The tobacco industry in Hong Kong has estimated gross revenues of $2
billion a year. The Institute's four main members, Philip Morris, British
American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Nanyang Brothers, are
the leading suppliers of cigarettes in Hong Kong.