Senior Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan says a
complete ban on smoking in Singapore has to be considered carefully
as it may cause unintended problems.
He was responding to recent calls for such a ban when he spoke at
the 7th Singapore Stroke Conference.
To help stub out the smoking habit, the government has smoking
cessation programmes and made cigarettes more expensive and
unavailable to the young.
Just recently, smoking in public areas like bus interchanges and
swimming complexes was banned.
Now, there are calls for a complete ban -- from people like
neurologist Dr Ramani.
He said up to a quarter of all strokes are caused by smoking - and
stroke is Singapore's fourth leading cause of death.
But Dr Balaji said a total ban raises other issues.
He said: "A total ban on cigarettes may cause unintended problems.
Banning may increase the illegal trade and smuggling of cigarettes,
as happened to alcohol during the prohibition in the US.
"Tourists may shy away from coming to Singapore. Hence, a total ban
on cigarettes in Singapore is a measure which we will have to
consider very carefully."
Although he hasn't ruled it out for now, the Ministry will be
continuing its anti-smoking efforts.
"I hear Dr Balaji's comments. While I am a little disappointed that
we are not going to ban it straight away, I am happy the Ministry
is considering it. I think we are in sync," said Dr Ramani, a
neurologist at the National Neuroscience Institute.
In fact, Dr Balaji said that in time to come, it might not even be
necessary to have a smoking ban as the Ministry aims to cut down
the number of new smokers to zero.
He did not give a time frame for this.
The Ministry also aims to reduce the number of existing smokers. -
CNA/ir
