Jump to full article: The Star (my), 2009-09-25
Author: Question Time by P. GUNASEGARAM
Intro: EVERYBODY, including tobacco companies, is now agreed that smoking is detrimental to good health. You only have to look at the cigarette packets to know this.
But nicotine is a powerful addictive drug. If you get hooked, it is very tough to give it up.
The best cure is prevention -- stop people from taking up the smoking habit in the first place. That means the target must be the young -- discourage them by all means fair from picking up the habit in the first place. . . .
We need guts and gumption to deal with this. Here are 10 ways to show we have it.
1. Increase cigarette prices. . . .
10. Adhere to international codes, rules and regulations. The world at large has recognised the dangers of smoking. Most countries in the world are signatories to the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which sets out measures that can be taken to discourage smoking.
By adhering to provisions of the code, Malaysia can move forward in the fight against smoking, which statistics show is becoming an increasingly serious problem here.
A phased series of actions based on these lines will go a long way towards checking smoking among our children and discouraging smokers from, well, smoking, thereby reducing the incidence of smoking overall.
It is important not to pull punches because of the cost it might inflict on the tobacco industry. The economic damage that smoking causes through health and productivity costs is far more than the benefits the industry contributes.
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