Two years ago, the Health Promotion Board announced its aims to get smoking rates in Singapore down to 12% by 2020. Last December, four tobacco control proposals were raised for public consultation: raising the minimum age for smoking, banning additives in tobacco products, selling cigarettes in plain packaging, and enlarging graphic health warnings on packaging. Some of these measures have been implemented in other countries or cities – such as Brazil, which has banned flavoured tobacco since 2012, and Australia, which has put in place plain packaging for cigarettes since 2012.
One suggestion raised has been to ban smoking for persons born after a certain year, due to the belief that youths at an older age would be less susceptible to picking up smoking. There is solid scientific evidence to back this – people who do not start smoking before the age of 21 are unlikely to ever begin, says Professor Lee Hin Peng from the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, citing a 2008 World Health Organisation report.
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