smoking ban to cover more places

those who smoke will soon have fewer places to do so because the smoking ban will be extended to cover more areas like common corriders, void decks and staircases of residential buildings.

other non-smoking areas to be covered include sheltered walkways, overhead bridges and outdoor hospital compounds.

the new non-smoking zones will kick in the coming year.

for bus-stops, the change means for those who smoke must stay outside a 5m radius around bus shelters.

all these comes as a the result of a public consultation exercise which the national environment agency and health promotion board initiated last november which attracted 8,000 respondents with 89% giving their ayes to an extension of the smoking ban.

on the smoking ban to cover more places, senior minister of state of the ministry of the environment and water resources, ms grace fu said:

"our long term goal is to prohibit smoking in all public places except in designated smoking areas...
our aim, in collaboration with the heatlh promotion board, is to work towards a future where singaporeans consider smoking not only detrimental to health, but also socially unacceptable."

my comments:

the upcoming implementation will surely be welcomed by most folks because of the threat to our health due to the dangers of what is termed as passive smoking which is well supported by medical evidence.

and the most recent untimely death of renowed taiwanese singer, ms feng fei fei who passed on from lung cancer has once again put the spotlight on the link between lung cancer and non-smokers because ms feng led a healthy lifestyle and did not smoke.

in our tiny red dot nation, non-smokers constitute 30 per cent of the total lung cancer cases each year, according to Dr Daniel Tan, associate consultant at the Department of Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS).

but it appears that the incidence of lung cancer in non-smokers is also higher in women than in men. Dr Daniel Tan said that seven out of 10 non-smokers who contract the cancer here are women. and lung cancer is the second most common cancer among women locally, after breast cancer.

however, even with the extended smoking ban, many of us (non-smokers) will still be exposed to the ambient smoke present when we visit the loo or take the elevator (especially in housing board flats) and that is a risk which is difficult to avoid altogether.

is there any way to hedge against the risk of contracting lung cancer?

the first option is to do nothing, or que sera sera.

the second is probably the tried and tested way which is to stay a non-smoker of course but there is really nothing much else we can do with regard to breathing in second hand smoke.

and the final solution is to consider transferring the risks of contracting cancer to a third party. on this, there are currently so many providers who offer not only the standard critical illness coverage but early critical illness and multiple critical illness claims as well.

do u have any other option/s?