THE government’s announcement to extend the smoking ban to laundrettes and hotels is certainly welcome news to 27 million Malaysians who do not smoke.
This is confirmed by the 80 per cent of the Netizens who responded to the New Straits Press Bhd’s online survey. But in our hurry to snuff out the smoking habit, we must not forget to allot some space for the smokers who number a substantial five million.
Until, at least, we have done our all to convince them to quit the nicotine habit. Nicotine is addictive, even the smokers know it, though they would be the last to admit it. And they know smoking is harmful, too. They see the graphic pictures of diseased lungs each time they buy their pack. The media, too, pounds them with the news of someone dying somewhere every six seconds due to tobacco-related ailment.
Perhaps one way to convince them out of their nicotine habit is to show them the amount of money they are burning away that they could have spent on something more beneficial for themselves or their families. In the estimate of the Consumer Association of Penang, smokers spent RM9.9 billion in 2017 buying 579.4 million packs of cigarettes.
This works out to 34 per cent of the healthcare allocation (almost RM29 billion) in the 2019 Budget. Smokers may do well to consider the arithmetic of the opportunity cost of smoking. Let’s assume the average Malaysian smoker puffs a pack of 20 cigarettes a day.
This will put a RM17 dent on his wallet every day. If he earns RM3,000 per month (not an unlikely example), the 20-stick pack will cost him RM510, an equivalent of 17 per cent of his salary. At RM6 per meal, this is equivalent to 85 meals forgone.
If we expand this to a national level, RM9.9 billion spent smoking would fund more than 800,000 students’ yearly scholarships of RM12,000 each. Or put another way, every two years a smoker can sponsor a student to university instead of spending RM510 a month on cigarettes.
Smokers may want to think again before they reach for their next nicotine stick.
Our Malaysian government — tax payers, really — pay for this smoking habit as well. Although no latest figures are available, one estimate puts the health care cost to the government’s coffers at between RM2 billion and RM3 billion.
The treatment cost for just the major illnesses caused by smoking such as lung cancer and coronary heart problems is expected to reach RM7.4 billion by 2025, our Health Ministry’s estimates.
According to a World Health Organisation report, more than 20,000 male adults in Malaysia die every year from complications due to smoking habit. The Health Ministry should give more thought to developing better prevention strategies as it seeks to extend its anti-smoking campaign. In the meanwhile, though, it may be wise to give the smokers a space to puff while they reflect on quitting their habit.