New anti-smoking campaign includes hard-hitting TV ads
By Wong Mun Wai, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 20 March 2007 1920 hrs

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SINGAPORE: A new hard-hitting anti-smoking campaign in Singapore aims to jolt smokers into quitting.

The three-month campaign includes graphic television advertisements showing cancer sufferers.

Singapore may have one of the lowest number of smokers in the region, but it still faces a challenge convincing some hardcore smokers to snub it out.

In total, the number of smokers in Singapore has dropped.

The last National Health Survey shows that over 12 percent of Singaporeans are smokers.

This is 3 percent lower than the figure six years earlier.

Choo Lin, Deputy Director, Smoking Control, Health Promotion Board, said: "One of the issues we are facing now are the psychologically and physiologically dependent smokers in Singapore because our smoking rate is so low.

"For countries with a low smoking rate, you do face a very resistant population. We really have to come with hard-hitting messages to jolt them."

But just how far will visual threats work?

Some people think smokers will consider quitting after they see the pictures.

And that is what the anti-smoking event hopes to achieve when it goes to the Central Business District next week.


- CNA/so