Tag: SIngapore

  • Gimme shelter

    umbrella photoAuthorities in Singapore are planning to build two smoking shelters on the streets of Orchard as part of a study to find out how effective such structures might be in encouraging smokers to light up away from crowded areas, according to a story by Chan Luo Er, for Channel NewsAsia.

    According to a government tender, these shelters will be constructed by the middle of April outside the Far East Plaza and the Orchard Towers.

    These two locations were picked from five designated smoking areas in Orchard because they had the highest concentrations of smokers, the authorities said.

    While smokers are not penalised if they light up outside such areas, they are required to comply with other laws such as not smoking within five metres of a building’s entrance or a bus stop.

    Smokers Channel NewsAsia spoke to said the shelters would have the positive effect of making the smoking zones more visible. The white markings on the ground indicating existing designated smoking areas were too subtle.

    The shelters could also reduce littering.

    Prof Chia Kee Seng, Dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore, said the initiative was a “good approach”.

    “The main thing about a designated smoking area is to prevent second-hand smoke for bystanders,” said Chia. “How you are going to implement it is a question of firstly, being fair to the group of people who are currently smokers. Secondly to be able to do it in a way that is logistically less cumbersome,” he added.

    Meanwhile, twin-bin cigarette canisters will be included within the Orchard shelters by August. They will be used as polling boxes for smokers to respond to questions that will be changed on a regular basis.

  • Young people getting older

    Smoking photo
    Photo by MyMaSs

    The legal age for buying and consuming tobacco products in Singapore is likely to be raised from 18 to 21, according to a Channel News Asia story quoting the Senior Minister of State for Health Amy Khor.

    “We want to protect our young from the harms of tobacco, and lay the foundation for good health,” she said in announcing the proposal to parliament yesterday.

    The news report said that the restrictions would be phased in over the next few years.

    Khor said that in Singapore 45 percent of smokers took up the habit when they were aged between 18 and 21.

    Research had shown that adolescent brains had a heightened sensitivity to the effects of nicotine, she said citing a World Health Organization report finding that people who did not start smoking before the age of 21 “are unlikely to ever begin”.

    The Health Promotion Board conducted a public consultation on further tobacco control measures between December 2015 and March 2016, and the feedback was said to have shown ‘considerable support’ for raising the minimum legal age for smoking in Singapore.

    So to de-normalize tobacco use further and reduce the number of youths picking up the habit, the ministry would propose legislative changes to parliament within a year to raise the minimum legal age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21, Khor said.

  • Fall in retail outlets

    Singapore photo
    Photo by osamukaneko

    The number of outlets in Singapore selling cigarettes and other tobacco products has fallen to a record low, according to a story in The Straits Times.

    Tobacco consumers could buy their products of choice from 4,764 retail points last year, figures provided by the Health Sciences Authority showed.

    This is the lowest number since 1998, when the Ministry of Health introduced laws that required tobacco sellers to obtain a license, the authority said.

    Last year’s figure is down by nearly 40 percent from the peak of 1999, when people could buy tobacco from more than 7,600 outlets island-wide.

    Industry players and smokers were said to have discovered that smoking had become an increasingly inconvenient habit in Singapore owing to the tougher restrictions.

    Meanwhile, a tobacco-products point-of-sale display ban, set to take effect later this year, is expected to affect sales.

  • Singapore to ban emerging tobacco products from mid-December

    Singapore will ban emerging tobacco products—those that are not currently available in Singapore as well as existing products in the local market—beginning Dec. 15, the ministry of health announced on June 15.

    The ban is a “pre-emptive measure to protect public health against the known and potential harms of such products,” the ministry said in a news release, adding that the ban will be implemented in two phases.

    The first phase, which will take effect Dec. 15, covers products that are currently not available in Singapore. Banned products include smokeless cigars; smokeless cigarillos or smokeless cigarettes; dissolvable tobacco or nicotine; any product containing nicotine or tobacco that may be used topically for application either by implant or injection into any part of the body; and any solution or substance, of which tobacco or nicotine is a constituent, that is intended to be used with an electronic nicotine-delivery system or vaporizer—such as e-cigarettes.

    The second phase, which will take effect Aug. 1, 2016, will cover existing products in the local market. Banned products include nasal snuff and oral snuff as well as gutkha, khaini and zarda.

    According to the ministry of health, the ban on existing products in the local market will take effect at a later date in order to give businesses time to adjust their operating models and deplete their existing stock.