Are more puffing away?
Figures show a yearly increase in smoking


By Zhen Ming


WHEN I was just a lad of 12, I secretly lit my first (and only) cigarette at a quiet corner just outside the family home.

I was then with my two younger brothers and we did what most young boys our age would try to do - find out for ourselves what it felt like 'to puff like a man'.

Fortunately, for me, I clumsily choked (and hacked painfully) on my first puff.

And because of this failed first attempt, I haven't lit another cigarette since.

In a survey conducted in the 1990s, almost a third (32 per cent) of all Singapore men smoked while only a minuscule proportion (3 per cent) of our women did.

Back then (in 1990 itself), the average person in Singapore smoked a total of 1,649 sticks of manufactured cigarettes in a year. This, however, paled when compared with 4,831 for Cyprus; 3,554 for Greece; 3,177 for Hungary; 3,081 for Japan; 2,895 for South Korea; 2,703 for Australia; and 2,605 for the US.

By 2006, however, this average per capita consumption of cigarettes here had dropped to only 699 sticks - mainly because of an aggressive anti-smoking campaign.

But, of late, there seems to a creeping resurgence in cigarette smoking, what with the average person here lighting up 706 sticks in 2007 and 731 last year. (See graphics, top.)

This, despite a per-stick tax (which took effect from 1 Jul 2003) imposing (higher) excise duty on each stick of cigarette based on its net tobacco content.

And this despite government measures to gradually ban smoking from buses, taxis, lifts, theatres, cinemas and government offices to air-conditioned restaurants, shopping centres, bus shelters, interchanges, public pools, toilets, community clubs and open-air stadiums. (This ban has now been extended to pubs, discos, hawker centres and coffee shops.)

Foreigners contributing?

With smoking no longer welcome in virtually all public places, one assumption for this recent upsurge in tobacco consumption is the higher number of foreigners here - 1.2 million in mid-2008 as compared to less than 900,000 in mid-2006.

Over the past two years, Singapore's population (foreigners included) rose by nearly 10 per cent whereas, over the same period, the total number of cigarettes smoked grew by almost 15 per cent. This is at a pace 50 per cent much faster than the population's overall increase.

In 2007 alone, Singapore's population grew by 4.25 per cent while the number of cigarettes smoked grew by 5.24 per cent over the same period. That's a 'surplus' cigarette growth of around 0.99 per cent was generated.

This 'surplus' growth - equivalent to some 30.5 million additional cigarettes - cannot be fully accounted for by population growth alone.

Assuming this 'surplus' was perhaps brought about by all the 130,000 additional new arrivals in our midst in 2007, then each additional newcomer in that year supposedly smoked an average of around 235 extra cigarettes (vis-a-vis what the average person in the population as a whole smoked).

Then in 2008, when Singapore's population grew by 5.47 per cent, the number of cigarettes smoked grew by 9.13 per cent - that is, a 'surplus' cigarette growth of around 3.66 per cent was generated.

Population growth not the reason

Here again, this 'surplus' growth - equivalent to some 119 million additional cigarettes - cannot be the result of population growth alone.

This time, assuming this 'surplus' was again contributed at the same rate by all the 191,200 additional new foreigners in 2008 (that is, assuming each newcomer last year also smoked an average of 235 extra cigarettes, just as in 2007), then the additional newcomers could, at best, account for 45 million additional cigarettes.

That leaves 74 million additional cigarettes in 2008 that, I conclude, must have come about only because we, on average, are starting to smoke more again.

The idea that last year's big increase in smoking was wholly contributed by foreigners is therefore an urban legend - that is, pure bunkum.

Source: The New Paper, Thu 12 Feb 2009