Top-down approaches to curb smoking won’t bear fruit

We have come a long way from the 10-cent loose cigarettes available in provision shops in the 1980s and ’90s to nicotine patches, raising cigarette taxes, no-smoking zones and raising the minimum age limit.

Yet we cannot claim a conclusive victory in this fight to stamp out smoking (After raising legal smoking age, what next? Iceland may offer answer; March 18).

I have been a smoker for about 20 years and my view is that measures such as graphic images as well as raising cigarette prices and the smoking age fail to identify the why of smoking.

Without engaging smokers in a discussion, most of these top-down approaches to eradicating this habit will not bear fruit.

There is a shadow economy that is seldom addressed. While I have not travelled down this avenue, many smokers can easily buy cheap contraband cigarettes. Raising cigarette prices or the age limit of smokers means little when there is the black market.

Secondly, using scare tactics to dissuade smokers seldom registers in their psyche. The health issues become tangible problems only after 20 to 30 years of smoking.

Let us engage youngsters and not merely see them as a problem. They already have a not-much-to-lose mentality, and raising the age limit to 21 now would exacerbate the forbidden fruit effect.

There must be engagement at a national level, and smokers’ voices must be heard. Perhaps national agencies can take a leaf out of Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which contains new yet effective ideas to overcome this habit.

This comment was first posted on todayonline.com