As Australia debates legislation that would effectively outlaw vaping without a prescription, Singapore is struggling to make its own hardline laws work.
What in the World, a free weekly newsletter from our foreign correspondents, is sent every Thursday. Below is an excerpt. Sign up to get the whole newsletteron the manufacture and sale of vapes without a prescription, Singapore is struggling to enforce its own hardline stance against e-cigarettes.
Customs officers patrol immigration checkpoints at the airport, ferry terminals and land borders looking for vapes. They caught 177 people at Changi airport in four days alone in December.None of this has made much difference. Ready black market availability and pervasive nicotine addiction have driven vaping to record highs. There are now four times the number of people using vapes in Singapore than in 2020, according to figures from the Health Sciences Authority.
In neighbouring Indonesia, the government has chosen to regulate vapes by imposing taxes. Vapes have surged 10-fold over the past decade in the archipelago as an alternative to smoking. Batam, a border town just across the Singapore Strait, and best known for welcoming Singaporean businessmen and their mistresses, has a thriving local vape scene.Vaping has even made inroads in Thailand, which in 2014 became one of the first countries to ban electronic cigarettes.
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