Social media vlogger Nas Daily is back at it with another video on Singapore, this time praising the islands strict smoking ban.
The one-minute video shows an enthusiastic Nas talking about Singapore upcoming smoking ban is the Orchard Road area, one of Singapore’s most popular shopping districts.
Earlier this year, Nas found himself in hot soup after releasing a few highly complementary videos about Singapore, calling it an ‘almost perfect country’ and singing praises for Changi Airport, the parking system, and water treatment system. PM Lee Hsien Loong even appeared in one of his videos, which prompted the question of whether Nas’ videos were sponsored by the Singapore government. Nas strongly denied those allegations.
However, a little later in October, he released a sponsored video for NTUC promoting their retirement plans. In that video, he did start with by saying that it was sponsored.
In this latest video about Singapore’s smoking ban, Nas starts off by saying, “everybody knows that you cannot smoke inside airplanes, you cannot smoke inside hotels, you cannot smoke inside shopping malls. But what if I told you, you cannot even smoke outside. In the country of Singapore, the people took it a step further and decided to ban smoking inside and outside.”
He adds that there are designated smoking areas in ‘tiny, tiny boxes that are clearly marked’ along Orchard Road for smokers.
Now, that’s true that Singapore is about to ban open smoking on Orchard Road but Nas seems to imply that Singapore is leading the charge in banning smoking in public area. That’s not true. In fact, Bhutan became the first nation in the world to outlaw smoking in all public place in 2004. That same year, Uruguay introduced a smoking ban in all public places including restaurants, bars, and offices. In Australia, smoking is prohibited in outdoor eating areas, beaches and all major sports stadiums.
In Japan, public smoking is banned on the streets of many wards, especially in weather areas like Shinjuku and Shibuya in Tokyo while Hong Kong prohibits smoking in most public recreational areas and beaches.
Closer to home, Singapore’s northern neighbour Malaysia has also recently announced a smoking ban in all open areas in eateries while smoking in public places like airports and hotels are only allowed in specific designated areas on top of their already existing no-smoking laws for indoor areas.
So, while it’s understandable that Nas is excited about the upcoming smoking ban in Singapore’s famed shopping district, he’s not quite accurate in implying that Singapore is the first or even one of the first to impose such a ban.
