Friday June 29, 2007
Tough task against VIP smokers
SUNGAI SIPUT: Please Yang Berhormat, this is a no-smoking zone.
Health officers are finding it an uphill task to enforce the ruling on VIPs, including elected representatives, found smoking in smoke-free areas.
“We want to respect them by not issuing summonses against them. But if we don’t do that, we'll be seen as not doing our duty,” Perak Health Department director Datuk Dr Ahmad Razin Ahmad Mahir said.
He said this after the opening of the state-level joint celebration of TB (tuberculosis) Day and a Week Without Tobacco campaign.
Dr Ahmad Razin declined to elaborate when asked how many of such “difficult situations” his enforcement officers had come across.
He noted that several measures had been taken to ensure public places were smoke-free.
Among them were ensuring that indoor public places and work places be gazetted 100% smoke-free, he added.
Earlier, state Health, Human Resources and Environment Committee chairman Datuk Tan Chin Meng said statistics last year showed that one out of two men aged between 25 and 64 were smokers.
“This group represents 2.9 million (or 93.5%) of the 3.1 million smokers in the country,” he said.
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