Too scared to smoke
Oct 30, 2008 News Breaks
Every time I head over to Singapore, or when a friend who lives there come back here, I cringe a little. No, no, it’s nothing personal. It’s just that many of them smoke and they always carry with them these hideous boxes with images of cancerous mouth and throats, and deformed foetuses.
I’m not sure if it is an effective campaign (after all, my friends are still smokers) but hey, if so many countries are implementing this policy, it has got to work at least a little. Which is perhaps why Malaysians will be faced with this grotesque images from January 1 next year.
Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai was reported in today’s The Star saying that the images must cover 40% of the front, and 60% of the back. That’s shit-loads of gross images on one tiny box, methinks.
“By Jan 1, each cigarette brand must have at least two of its products with these warnings. By next June, all cigarette packs must carry the warnings,” he told a press conference at his office here yesterday.
Woah! Well, my advice to my smoking friends is - quit now! I don’t want to have to see gross images like that lah. Already in my office lift areas, there’s a huge poster of a severely deformed person with arrows pointing to different parts of the body saying what smoking does to it.
That said, there are some images that catches my attention. I took this a couple of years ago in Singapore, along Orchard Road which I thought was a brilliant, brilliant idea!
5.37pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)
Tags: cancer, cigarettes, liow tiong lai, lungs, smoking
