Singapore may broaden smoking ban to pubs

Singapore may broaden a ban on smoking to include pubs, coffee shops and bus stops, the government said on Wednesday, as part of an aggressive anti-tobacco campaign.

Areas open to smoking were under review, a minister told parliament, hinting the wealthy city-state may follow Ireland, which in March led the world in becoming the first country to ban smoking in pubs.

Singapore has already required tobacco producers since August to cover half of each pack of cigarettes with grisly images such as a mouthful of rotten teeth or diseased organs.

Cigarette prices have risen regularly, tobacco advertisements have been banned since the 1970s and the government lifted a 12-year ban on chewing gum this year to allow the sale of nicotine gum - to help smokers to quit.

A smoking ban now covers public transport, elevators, theatres, government offices, air-conditioned restaurants, shopping centres and queues of more than two people - such as at taxi stands.

The idea of extending it to pubs has met fierce resistance from bar-owners, but Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim said a large area of the city could be off limits to smokers.

"These places include not just pubs, but also bus shelters, bus interchanges, public toilets, hawker centres and coffee shops," he said.

Smoking killed nearly 5 million people worldwide in 2000, with men more than three times as likely as women to go to an early grave, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Tobacco Control.

More than half of all deaths occurred among smokers between the ages of 30 and 69, said the researchers based at Harvard University and the University of Queensland.

Official statistics say the number of smokers is steadily falling, from 20 percent of Singapore's population in 1984 to 14 percent in 2001. But the numbers of young female smokers are on the rise.