Health

S’pore Wins World No Tobacco Day Award After Minimum Smoking Age Was Raised To 21

S’pore Gets No Tobacco Day Award From World Health Organisation

World No Tobacco Day was on Sunday (31 May), and World Health Organisation (WHO) has been reaching out to the young in an effort to prevent a new generation from picking up the habit.

It’s quite apt then that Singapore has won a World No Tobacco Day Award this year, thanks to our efforts in trying to curb smoking at a young age.

Source

The news might have gone under the radar if not for a Facebook post on Sunday (31 May) by Sembawang GRC Member of Parliament Amrin Amin.

Source

Mr Amrin praised the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Health Promotion Board (HPB) for the “significant achievement”. Here’s what else he had to say about Singapore’s efforts to reduce tobacco usage.

3 reasons why S’pore won the award

Mr Amrin shared that we won the award for implementing these 3 policies:

  1. Raising minimum legal age for buying & using tobacco progressively to 21
  2. Standardised packaging for cigarettes
  3. Banning e-cigarettes, vapourisers & heated tobacco products

Singapore was honoured among other awardees in the Western Pacific Region, including China, South Korea & Australia, according to the WHO website.

Source

Minimum age to be raised to 21 on 1 Jan, 2021

To further decrease the chances for young people to take up smoking before they turn 21, MOH progressively raised the minimum age for a person to buy, use, possess, sell and supply tobacco products.

 

The minimum age went up from 18 to 19 years old on 1 Jan, 2019, was raised to 20 on 1 Jan this year, and will go up to 21 on 1 Jan, 2021.

Source

Standardised packaging for all tobacco products from 1 July

In an effort to further reduce the attraction of smoking to young people, MOH also will implement mandatory standardised packaging for all tobacco products, which will also have to carry graphic health warnings enlarged to 75% of the surface.

This will come into effect on 1 July, the MOH said.

Other packaging requirements include the removal of all colours, logos, images and promotional information on the packaging other than brand and variant names in plain colour and font.

Thus, our tobacco products will soon look something like this:

Source

Vaporisers, heated tobacco products banned since 2018

The Singapore Government has also banned emerging and imitation tobacco products since 2018. This category includes:

  1. Device or articles that resemble tobacco products, like Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems — also known as vaporisers, which include e-cigarettes.
  2. Heated tobacco products, i.e. battery-operated devices that heat tobacco to produce an aerosol containing nicotine and other chemicals, which are inhaled by the user through the mouth and taken into the body.
  3. Smokeless tobacco products, chewing tobacco and shisha

Giving its reasons for outlawing such products, MOH cited the United States Surgeon General as associating e-cigarette use with the eventual using of real cigarettes by young people.

According to MOH, the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has evidence to show that e-cigarette use increases the likelihood young people using regular cigarettes.

Source

It added that although e-cigarettes have been promoted as a way to stop smoking, there’s not enough evidence to prove that is the case.

MOH also warned that in other countries, e-cigarette promotion among young people has resulted in an increased take-up, and such a trend needs to be avoided in Singapore’s young.

Source

WHO concerned over young people being targeted by tobacco industry

Our efforts in these three areas have definitely caught the attention of the WHO, which is also rolling out its own campaign to curb smoking among young people.

Watch its video here:

According to the WHO, the tobacco industry is targeting young people to take up smoking to maintain their revenue, as they are needed to replace the people who have already died due to smoking.

Source

Mr Amrin also highlighted such efforts, saying,

Pseudo-experts and industry-funded research tried to influence public opinion by downplaying the damaging effects of tobacco in cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other products.

Aware that young people are allegedly being aggressively marketed to by the tobacco companies, the WHO is thus starting counter-campaign in response “debunk myths and expose devious tactics employed by these industries”.

The organisation is even organising a World No Tobacco Day TikTok Challenge, where participants can submit a dance video. The details are on its website.

It aims to create a tobacco-free generation by providing young people with the knowledge and tools to counter tobacco marketing.

Smokers also more likely to get serious case of Covid-19

If that’s not enough to persuade people from quitting smoking, it has also been reported that acute smokers are more likely to die if they catch Covid-19 than even the elderly.

Source

That’s because they’re more susceptible to getting serious respiratory complications when they’re infected with the coronavirus.

Source

More work still needs to be done

According to Mr Amrin, about six Singaporeans pass away daily from ailments linked to smoking, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke and lung disease.

The fight is not over, as about 10.6% of adult Singaporeans still smoke daily, he said.

So while we’re glad over Singapore’s achievements so far, more work still needs to be done to prevent more young people from picking up the habit.

Featured images adapted from Facebook & Facebook.

Jeremy Lee

Analog person making do with a digital world.

Recent Posts

Hawkers will be allowed to hire long-term visit pass holders as assistants from 1 Jan

"This change will allow more flexibility in hiring stall assistants," said Dr Koh.

15 Oct 2024, 2:16 am

Ex-MP Raeesah Khan testifies at Pritam Singh’s trial, says she saw him as a mentor

After her mistake, she was feeling "lost" and wondered whether she was cut out to…

14 Oct 2024, 11:55 pm

51 suffer gastroenteritis after eating food supplied by Stamford Catering Services, company suspended

The company was also involved in a food poisoning incident in 2019.

14 Oct 2024, 10:34 pm

Flooding occurs across S’pore during heavy rain on 14 Oct, lowest temperature 22.5°C

A woman was seen wading in knee-deep water at a bus stop.

14 Oct 2024, 9:52 pm

Woman says GetGo ‘not helpful’ after cards go missing, company says PDPA restricts them from sharing customer details

The company urged her to lodge a police report so they could assist within their…

14 Oct 2024, 6:41 pm

S’pore Govt calls off Income Insurance-Allianz deal, cites concerns over social mission impact

The deal in its current form is not in the public's interest, the Government concluded.

14 Oct 2024, 5:58 pm