Preventing tobacco sale to Y2000 cohort

9 April 2012

Question No. 316

Name of person: Mr Liang Eng Hwa

Question

To ask the Minister for Health whether the Ministry will consider the proposal contained in Towards Tobacco-Free Singapore to prevent the supply of tobacco to Singaporeans born after 2000 and what is the Government's position on this proposal.

Answer

1     The proposal to ban the sale of cigarettes to Singaporean residents born from the year 2000 was first suggested in October 2010. There are significant practical difficulties and risks in implementing and enforcing such a measure and it may not result in the desired reduction in smoking rates. For example, a person affected by the ban can circumvent it by getting a friend or relative unaffected by the ban to purchase tobacco products for them or buying the tobacco products while overseas, thereby rendering the intended control measure ineffective. It would be difficult to enforce against adults who provide tobacco to other adults who happen to be members of the targeted cohort. It would also appear unreasonable for one cohort to be prohibited from smoking while their slightly older peers are allowed to smoke. When these cohorts grow into adults, enforcing the ban would be even more challenging as age differences between cohorts would become less apparent physically. Studies have also shown that adults, be it parents, relatives or role models, who smoke will greatly influence the initiation of youth smoking. Unless smoking prevalence in both adults and youth are reduced to very low rates, it will be difficult to stem out smoking in the Year 2000 cohort totally.

2      Singapore has one of the lowest smoking rates in the World at 14.3% in 2010, compared to Australia’s 16.6%, New Zealand’s 20% and Thailand’s 23.7%, but we remain concerned about tobacco use and the health consequences. The public can be assured that my Ministry will continue to be proactive in our efforts on tobacco control, in collaboration with partner agencies such as MEWR, NEA and Singapore Customs. In the recent Committee of Supply Debate, my Ministry announced new tobacco control measures on cigarette packaging to be implemented on 1st March 2013. NEA also announced its extension of smoking ban to more public spaces.

3     My Ministry will continue to review our tobacco control programme to ensure that it remains targeted, dynamic and responsive to trends. We will press on with our tobacco control efforts, with a sharpened focus on youth. We will step up the Live it Up without Lighting Up (LIUWLU) initiative, which targets at youths to advocate a healthy tobacco-free lifestyle. In 2011, we also launched the I Quit movement to provide smoking cessation support at the community level. We will continue to work with tobacco control advocacy from academics, NGOs and other organisations to encourage smoke-free lifestyles for our population. We also look forward to working with grassroots organizations on our anti-smoking programmes.