Singapore to hold plain packs public consultation

A public consultation on standardized tobacco packaging is due to be carried out in Singapore at the end of this year, according to a story by Rachel Au-Yong for the Straits Times quoting the Parliamentary Secretary, Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim.

If implemented, tobacco product packaging would lose its ‘trademarks, logos, colour schemes and images’, but keep its health warnings.

Australia is the only country to have imposed standardized tobacco packaging, but Ireland has passed legislation requiring such packaging and the UK is on the way to doing the same.

Associate Professor Faishal announced the public consultation as one of several tobacco control measures, during the debate on the Health Ministry’s budget.

The government would continue to help smokers quit through health campaigns and the ministry would push also to ban point-of-sale displays of tobacco products later this year.

New and emerging tobacco products that appealed to young people might be banned, he said.

In a statement, the ministry said that some countries had prohibited the sale of tobacco for oral use, while others had prohibited electronic cigarettes.

Shisha, which was described as ‘one such emerging product’, had been banned in Singapore in November last year ‘to prevent its proliferation and entrenchment in Singapore’.

It was intended that other types of emerging tobacco products would be treated in the same manner later this year.