November 15, 2024
SINGAPORE – The authorities have removed about 6,000 online listings selling e-vaporisers in the first nine months of 2024, after stepping up enforcement against online advertisements and sales of vapes.
This is double the 3,000 listings removed in the whole of 2023.
Health Minister Ong Ye Kung gave these latest figures on Nov 13 in a written reply to Dr Wan Rizal’s (Jalan Besar GRC) parliamentary question on measures to curb vaping in schools and institutes of higher learning (IHLs).
Dr Wan Rizal noted that more people were getting caught and fined for using or possessing vapes, especially among youth.
There were 9,680 people caught using or possessing vapes in the first nine months of 2024, according to figures previously given by the health authorities.
This is more than the 7,838 people caught in the whole of 2023.
Mr Ong said the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) has stepped up enforcement against online advertisements and sales of e-vaporisers.
He said HSA has worked with platform owners to remove offending listings, though he did not specify which platforms.
Emphasising the need for more effective public education efforts, Mr Ong wrote: “Many studies have shown that vaping is at least as harmful, if not more harmful, than cigarette smoking.
“Yet, we are fighting against an industry that is deliberately targeting young people, disguising (a) harmful substance as (a) cool lifestyle habit with a fruity taste.”
Vaping is often mistakenly regarded as “safer” than smoking cigarettes, but it has been flagged by the World Health Organisation as harmful.
It has been banned in Singapore since 2018.
In the first half of 2024, 5,480 people were caught possessing or using vapes.
The number includes 690 students referred to HSA by schools and IHLs.
Between July 1 and Sept 30, 3,840 people were caught and fined for the offence, of whom 743 were students.
Singapore saw its largest seizure of vape products on March 28, 2023, after HSA raided a warehouse in Mandai.
It found more than 194,500 vape products worth over $3.1 million that had been prepared for sale.
Two men who worked as couriers were fined a total of $17,000.
The uptick in vaping cases was also seen in a survey of Singapore citizens and permanent residents conducted in June by market research company Milieu Insight.
It found that 5.5 per cent of its 5,957 respondents used vapes and heated tobacco products, up from 3.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2021, when the company first started doing the quarterly survey.
More than half of vape users were aged between 21 and 39, said the company as it shared the survey results on Nov 14.
Conversely, the proportion of regular cigarette smokers among respondents dipped, from 10.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2021, to 9.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2024.
The most common reasons people gave for using vapes were to reduce cigarette consumption, reduce offensive second-hand smoke, and to try something different.
The rise in vaping cases prompted four trade associations, whose 780 members run coffee shops, eateries and provision shops in Singapore, to launch an anti-vaping campaign in March.
Members of the Foochow Coffee Restaurant and Bar Merchants Association, Kheng Keow Coffee Merchants Restaurant and Bar-Owners Association, Singapore Minimart Association, and Singapore Provision Shop Friendly Association put up anti-vaping posters and table stickers on their premises.
The campaign has also gone digital with an Instagram page @stop_illegalvaping_sg to reach younger people.
Mr Ong Kok Chee, secretary of the Singapore Provision Shop Friendly Association, who runs a store at Block 206 Toa Payoh North, said the associations were concerned about the harmful health effects of vaping on young people.
Some do not know vaping is illegal, and have even asked if his store sells vapes, said Mr Ong, 63, who has three children in their 20s.
Mr Ong said that before the campaign, he would see people vaping in the area about once or twice a week.
He once tried to educate a vaping customer about its harmful effects.
Mr Ong said: “Initially, he was not so happy, like ‘mind your own business’. But at least I tried my best to educate him and tell him that what he was doing was wrong.”