2 suggestions on tackling secondhand smoke from neighbours

I read with great disappointment Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment Amy Khor’s response to Member of Parliament Louis Ng’s adjournment motion on protecting individuals from secondhand smoke exposure in one’s own home.

Dr Khor said Mr Ng’s suggested ban on smoking near windows or on balconies would be highly intrusive and hard to enforce. She also expressed her ministry’s commitment to protect individuals from secondhand smoke exposure, by citing the expansion of smoke restrictions to 32,000 public places and a drop in the smoking prevalence rate over the years to 10.6 per cent. 

What would these figures mean to an individual and his/her family subject to secondhand smoke daily in their own homes, with nowhere to escape to? 

I would like to suggest tackling this issue on two fronts.

First, legislation is necessary. This would serve as a final safety net of protection, when all mediation fails. 

As it stands, a smoker is not obliged to agree to any form of mediation. If that happens, the state cannot do anything about it. 

However, with legislation, the state would have an option to enforce action on that recalcitrant individual if all mediation efforts fail. 

This legislation, if enacted, would not serve as the first course of action, but a final step after all else fails. 

This would send a clear signal to the smoker that it is not okay to subject his/her neighbours to secondhand smoke, while providing assurance to the affected neighbours that a clear recourse exists to protect them.

Second, let's proactively develop technologies that can detect secondhand smoke exposure in homes. 

Physical and chemical smoke detectors already exist to detect secondhand smoke exposure. In a specific study of an off-the-shelf physical smoke detector design, a residence subjected to secondhand smoke displays a 50 per cent higher concentration of PM2.5 particles than one that is not subjected to secondhand smoke.

Alternatively, a chemical detector, made of conductive polymer films, was shown to be sensitive enough to detect off-gassing nicotine, or third-hand smoke. 

These technologies may not be sufficiently mature for use.

But if Singapore is committed to protecting one from secondhand smoke exposure, funding could be made available for the nation’s research institutions to further develop such technologies to establish significant exposure to secondhand smoke in one’s own home, instead of solely relying on capturing the offending act in progress. 

With data and analytics, I believe it would not be difficult to locate the source of the offending smoke and the unit where it originated, without intruding into the private spaces of the smoker.

The research funding could come from tobacco taxes.

I hope the Government can be more proactive in finding a solution to this problem instead of relying on goodwill and greater social responsibility.

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