Images of diseased brains, fat-clogged arteries and lung cancers could soon adorn cigarette packaging as the Government adopts shock tactics in the war against smoking.
The Committee on Smoking Control wants Singapore to become the first Asian country to force cigarette makers to print such images on packs to provide a more striking message than traditional health warnings.
'I think there is a good chance of this going through,' said committee chairman Alex Chan. 'In general, the Health and Environment ministries are in full support.' In Canada and Europe there are already proposals to have pictures of diseased organs and rotting teeth cover up to 50 per cent of cigarette packaging.
Singapore, which already boasts stiff anti-smoking curbs, first experimented with shock advertising therapy last year, with a series of gruesome television adverts. Viewers saw brain tumours, cancerous lungs and fat-choked arteries with the insides squeezed out.
The television adverts, adapted from Australia's National Tobacco Campaign, proved exceptionally effective during their first year. Previously, the committee's telephone hotline received on average 1,000 calls a year from people wanting advice on how to quit.
After the campaign was launched, 11,000 calls were received in just the first four months. Smoking is banned in all public places and all air-conditioned places that serve food, and heavy taxes are levied on tobacco. The Government's last national survey, in 1998, found that 15 per cent of Singaporeans smoked, down two per cent on its previous survey. However, smoking among young women was rising.
Elsewhere in Asia, where anti-smoking curbs are scant, it is a different story.