(no subject)
Ban tobacco, says smoker
Taxes, containment won't stub out health worry
Charles Tan
news@newstoday.com.sg
I'M a smoker and a "dying breed".
Despite taking Zyban, sticking on nicotine patches and other quit-smoking aids, I still continue with this deadly habit. I'm a self-confessed addict of the highest order. How I wish cigarette packs had carried the ominous health warning labels 40 years ago. I would have been deterred from picking up the habit.
In the past, young and old were suckered into lighting up by glamorous commercials. Remember the jingle, "Cool clean (Brand X), it's so refreshing", and a picture showing a lovely young couple with sparkling white teeth, smoking while dangling their feet in a flowing brook?
Or the handsome, macho cowboy enjoying a cigarette as he rode into the sunset, to the voiceover "Come to where the flavour is. Come to (Brand Y) country"?
These images seduced young minds to take the first puff and then - wham - hooked them for life. The media then was addicted to the advertising pot of gold and was as culpable as the tobacco industry. They had associated smoking with sophistication and success, not the smoke-related diseases it caused.
Nowadays, anti-smoking advertisements are gory in detail; their purpose is to shock and scare smokers or would-be puffers. Tobacco ads no longer rule the airwaves or the billboards in many developed countries.
Still, the tobacco industry sponsors world-class sporting events such as Formula One racing. The tobacco industry, the health terrorist, has now moved to target Third World countries where the laws are less stringent.
Aren't multinational tobacco companies traffickers of a deadly substance, one that has killed millions? Why do they still possess the right to peddle this product, spreading disease on a scale greater than the cholera epidemics of the 19th century?
It's called "tobacco politics". The tobacco lobby wields tremendous power in the Western world, a triumph of wealth over health.
All governments are willing bedfellows. They discourage smoking on one hand, but stretch the other one out for cigarette taxes. (The Singapore Government has, of course, made clear that revenue collection is not the objective.) Surely, if governments are serious about the health of citizens, they would consider banning this narcotic substance?
Instead, they work around an outright ban - they increase taxes. This has a threefold result: Making it an expensive habit to continue and deterring new smokers, enlarging the national revenue flow, and keeping the tobacco industry alive.
However, the health issue remains.
Tobacco companies have been taken to court in class-action suits. They have paid out huge sums of money, and yet, they still thrive. Why? Because of the vast sums of money they make selling cigarettes.
In many countries, people are demanding that smoking be outlawed in public places. In Singapore, the ban is being extended to hawker centres, coffee shops and pubs over the next two years.
But this only goes towards solving part of the health problem. The bolder move is to stop the cancerous growth (pun intended) with a complete ban.
In a study on smoking trends over the past two decades, Curtin University's Professor Mike Daube has predicted that smoking would die a natural death and be extinct in Western Australia within 25 years. He says there will always be a small number of people who will continue to smoke. But, he maintains, within a couple of decades, smoking will be as uncommon as spitting in the streets.
Do we sit around and wait for the prediction to materialise, or should we resort to the "final solution" of banning it?
Yes, a ban would hit tobacco-growing countries financially and cause mass unemployment unless tobacco is replaced with other cash crops. Also, some argue that prohibition would create a ready market for enterprising criminal elements to exploit.
So, which country will be the first bold enough to ban cigarettes? Is this just a pipe dream?
Perhaps in a country such as Singapore, which imports all its tobacco, banning it is a viable proposition. After all, she has already banned the import of most kinds of a less harmful substance - chewing gum.
Is Singapore bold enough to take such a big step: Forgo the tobacco taxes and tourist dollars for health?
The writer, a Singaporean, lives in Perth, where he is consultant to a law firm.
Taxes, containment won't stub out health worry
Charles Tan
news@newstoday.com.sg
I'M a smoker and a "dying breed".
Despite taking Zyban, sticking on nicotine patches and other quit-smoking aids, I still continue with this deadly habit. I'm a self-confessed addict of the highest order. How I wish cigarette packs had carried the ominous health warning labels 40 years ago. I would have been deterred from picking up the habit.
In the past, young and old were suckered into lighting up by glamorous commercials. Remember the jingle, "Cool clean (Brand X), it's so refreshing", and a picture showing a lovely young couple with sparkling white teeth, smoking while dangling their feet in a flowing brook?
Or the handsome, macho cowboy enjoying a cigarette as he rode into the sunset, to the voiceover "Come to where the flavour is. Come to (Brand Y) country"?
These images seduced young minds to take the first puff and then - wham - hooked them for life. The media then was addicted to the advertising pot of gold and was as culpable as the tobacco industry. They had associated smoking with sophistication and success, not the smoke-related diseases it caused.
Nowadays, anti-smoking advertisements are gory in detail; their purpose is to shock and scare smokers or would-be puffers. Tobacco ads no longer rule the airwaves or the billboards in many developed countries.
Still, the tobacco industry sponsors world-class sporting events such as Formula One racing. The tobacco industry, the health terrorist, has now moved to target Third World countries where the laws are less stringent.
Aren't multinational tobacco companies traffickers of a deadly substance, one that has killed millions? Why do they still possess the right to peddle this product, spreading disease on a scale greater than the cholera epidemics of the 19th century?
It's called "tobacco politics". The tobacco lobby wields tremendous power in the Western world, a triumph of wealth over health.
All governments are willing bedfellows. They discourage smoking on one hand, but stretch the other one out for cigarette taxes. (The Singapore Government has, of course, made clear that revenue collection is not the objective.) Surely, if governments are serious about the health of citizens, they would consider banning this narcotic substance?
Instead, they work around an outright ban - they increase taxes. This has a threefold result: Making it an expensive habit to continue and deterring new smokers, enlarging the national revenue flow, and keeping the tobacco industry alive.
However, the health issue remains.
Tobacco companies have been taken to court in class-action suits. They have paid out huge sums of money, and yet, they still thrive. Why? Because of the vast sums of money they make selling cigarettes.
In many countries, people are demanding that smoking be outlawed in public places. In Singapore, the ban is being extended to hawker centres, coffee shops and pubs over the next two years.
But this only goes towards solving part of the health problem. The bolder move is to stop the cancerous growth (pun intended) with a complete ban.
In a study on smoking trends over the past two decades, Curtin University's Professor Mike Daube has predicted that smoking would die a natural death and be extinct in Western Australia within 25 years. He says there will always be a small number of people who will continue to smoke. But, he maintains, within a couple of decades, smoking will be as uncommon as spitting in the streets.
Do we sit around and wait for the prediction to materialise, or should we resort to the "final solution" of banning it?
Yes, a ban would hit tobacco-growing countries financially and cause mass unemployment unless tobacco is replaced with other cash crops. Also, some argue that prohibition would create a ready market for enterprising criminal elements to exploit.
So, which country will be the first bold enough to ban cigarettes? Is this just a pipe dream?
Perhaps in a country such as Singapore, which imports all its tobacco, banning it is a viable proposition. After all, she has already banned the import of most kinds of a less harmful substance - chewing gum.
Is Singapore bold enough to take such a big step: Forgo the tobacco taxes and tourist dollars for health?
The writer, a Singaporean, lives in Perth, where he is consultant to a law firm.