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Senior Minister of State for Health, Dr Koh Poh Koon, said today (11 Jan) that the Singapore Government is studying from New Zealand’s recent move to start a cohort smoking ban.
New Zealand has previously announced that people under the age of 14 from 2027 will never be allowed to buy cigarettes in their lifetime.
Dr Koh added that this sounds attractive as it prevents the younger generation here from picking up smoking while not putting any restrictions on the older smokers.
Dr Koh has said this in response to questions put up by five MPs in parliament.
Consideration factors
While MOH is opened to a policy like this, there are factors that will be taken into consideration.
The first factor was that Singapore’s youth are generally not taking up smoking as much as youths in other countries.
Youths these days see the harmful effects of smoking and no longer think that it is ‘cool’ to smoke, added Dr Koh.
Vaping a problem
Dr Koh added that while NZ has promote a ban on smoking, it uses vaping as an alternative, something which Singapore disagrees with.
He mentioned that vaping remains a problem in Singapore amongst the younger generation here as e-cigarettes still find their way into the country even with many bans in place.
He also said that there is much more to be done to keep the current enforcement actions in place.
Enforcement actions against older generation
Dr Koh also added that enforcement action will be a challenge.
This is because to ensure that such a ban is effective, the government will need to come out with laws to punish older people who are not subjected to these bans but may aid in supplying tobacco products to the younger generation.
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