I'd ban cigarettes if I could - Khaw Boon Wan

BAN cigarettes.

Some say that's one definitive way to stamp out the "dirty habit".

As a Health Minister who has already prohibited alternative tobacco and nicotine products, banning cigarettes should be easy to do for Mr Khaw Boon Wan. But it is something he won't do.

"Cigarettes have been around for so long. About 14 per cent of the population (smoke), so that's more than half a million people, 700,000 people (will get upset)," he said.

But what is not yet here, he'll do his best to keep out.

It was a lesson he learnt from Subutex, which was listed as a controlled drug in the Misuse of Drugs Act in August 2006.

Before that however, it was permitted as a prescription drug in 2002 to help heroin addicts kick the habit.

But instead of using the drug to help wean themselves off heroin, addicts took it for a fix.

So he sat down with Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng. "(I said) let's acknowledge that I think Ministry of Health made a mistake of not registering this, and allowing this drug to come in," he said.

But as it was already in Singapore, then "let's do the second best thing", which is to make it a controlled drug. It took a few months.

"... but unforeseen damage had already been done, a few hundred people have already become Subutex addicts," he said. "It just shows...a decision, taken probably wrongly, or without proper advice, and the damage it makes."

"I think our approach in Singapore, zero tolerance for drug addiction, it's harsh, but to me I think it's the correct way. I'll defend it."

ORIGINAL SOURCE

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