Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email I was pondering on the statistics that passive smoking kills nearly 600,000 people annually around the world. Yeah, that’s just about 0.009% of the world population. But imagine in a country like Malaysia where number of smokers seem to be increasing (for both genders and also among the underaged), 0.009% of our population is about 2430 people “only” (its less than half of deaths due to road accidents last year, 6745).
I think more drastic/radical (well, why not call it creative!) action is needed to remove the threat of passive smoking. Among them (I was inspired while half-asleep):
1. Ban smoking in all eateries, in addition to existing prohibited places.
2. Ban the sale of tobacco products in all eateries, supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol stations.
3. Eateries/supermarkets/convenience stores/petrol stations that allow their patrons to smoke will be automatically sealed for 1 week. For long, the business owners have washed their hands of their social responsibility. Time to act.
4. Item 3 above should be applied to colleges/universities as well since quite a number of these places seem to promote smoking.
5. Political parties must only nominate non-smokers as candidates for public office.
5. All civil service jobs should be limited to non-smokers only. (yes, its discriminatory, but take it as affirmative action).
6. Private sector organisations that promote non-smoking environment to be given tax deduction, whereas those that don’t are to pay a “sin tax” of 10% which goes towards their employees health fund.
7. Smokers to pay 3 times more the price of their insurance premium. I base this on the assumption that a family consist of 4 members (as per Malaysian household income calculation) and the one smoker causes passive smoking for the other 3 family members. So, its only logical that the smoker takes extra insurance to protect other family members.
8. Sellers and buyers of contraband cigarettes to face mandatory jail sentence.
9. Artistes, sports figures, and other public figures which promote smoking or endorse products related to smoking should be reprimanded by their respective authorities/industry.
10. Educate public not to visit/engage/patronise places that allow smoking, wherever possible. There must be a boycott movement to slowly eradicate such places.
Of course, many of the steps above involves enforcement, surveillance and punishment, something that is sorely lacking at the moment. That’s why public must play a role by: staying away from smoking areas, limit patronising shops that sell cigarettes, and so on.
