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TWO students in a secondary school here have taken entrepreneurship to a new level - they are selling cigarettes to schoolmates at inflated prices.
The boys, who are 15, started out as good friends, but soon turned into rivals as they competed for customers, a 13-year-old schoolmate told the The New Paper.
One boy sells a stick of cigarette for 70 cents and the other sells a stick for $1, said Mark (not his real name).
"But more people buy from the '$1 boy' because he's more popular," he added matter- of-factly.
As a business plan, selling cigarettes by the stick seems sound. Most underage smokers do not want or cannot afford to buy a 20-stick pack, which costs more than $10.
So the teenage peddlers buy a pack and sell it piece meal for a healthy profit.
But they are running afoul of the law.
A lawyer, Mr Pratap Kishan, of Kishan & V Suria Partnership, said they could face several charges, such as selling cigarettes by the stick, which is forbidden by law, underage possession of cigarettes and selling cigarettes to minors.
"As they are juveniles, they will be dealt with in the Juvenile Court, which will look at rehabilitation like probation or, in severe cases, sending them to a boys' home," he said.
They could also be let off with a stern police warning, Mr Kishan added.
It is believed that the cigarettes sold by the two boys are not contraband.
Another student, Alan (not his real name), said the boy who sells a stick of cigarette for $1 would get his 18-year-old brother to buy the cigarettes for him.
The boy then puts the packets in a plastic bag and hides the stash in bushes under an overhead bridge near the school.
Alan, 14, said: "When students place their orders with him, he will go to get the cigarettes for them.
"Sometimes, he allows them to follow him, but once, his cigarettes went missing from under the bridge."
Mark, who's in Secondary 1, admitted to lighting up but claimed he did not buy from the two boys as he preferred to get his cigarettes by the packet.
He said he began lighting up in January after being influenced by a 16-year-old schoolmate.
Mark and Alan claimed they have stopped puffing after their counsellor found out about their bad habit.
It was through them that Ms Sheena Jebal, the CEO and founder of NuLife Care & Counselling Services, discovered the school's cigarette peddlers.
An appalled Ms Jebal said: "(The boys selling the cigarettes) certainly have entrepreneurial qualities, but they're putting it to wrong use."
The counsellor went to the boys' school last Tuesday to report the matter to the principal and discipline master.
"They assured me they would investigate," she said.
Ms Jebal, whom Mark and Alan address as "big sister", had been counselling them on their academic struggles for the last three years.
Suspected
Ms Jebal said: "I suspected they were smoking, just from the way they looked and talked to me.
"When I asked them if they were smoking and they said no, I could tell immediately they were lying."
She soon found out that Mark, Alan and another 13-year-old boy were puffing, and that they sometimes bought the contraband stuff near a coffee shop in Ang Mo Kio.
After talking to them, the counsellor of 16 years managed to get the names of about 10 other classmates who also lit up.
Last week, Singapore Customs officers raided the area near the coffee shop. They seized contraband cigarettes and arrested a man who has been charged in court.
Alan, who began lighting up in March last year, claimed that 10 out of his 33 classmates also smoke.
Statistics from the Health Sciences Authority show that the number of minors caught lighting up is high.
In 2008, 6,671 teens under 18 years old were caught for underage smoking. Last year, 6,607 were caught and the figure for the first six months of this year is 3,677.
When asked how often he lit up, Alan replied: "I smoke when I have cigarettes."
Ms Jebal said she has counselled the boys to quit.
"I said I wouldn't tell their parents because they must have the fear that their family members don't know yet," she said.
But a week after she learnt about their puffing in mid-June, Mark's mother also found out.
The teenager, who lives with his mother and has not seen his father for a year, said he had just lit his last stick at home.
That was when his mother got a whiff of his puff.
Mark recalled: "She lectured me, and I felt very guilty."
Ms Jebal said: "That day, he cried really hard. His mother came to see me and told me she had never seen him cry so badly."
The boy added with a sigh: "It was my very last stick. I was going to stop smoking after that. Why did she have to find out about it?"
He has since promised his mother and Ms Jebal to stop lighting up.
Caught and Counselled
Under the Smoking (Control of Advertisements and Sale of Tobacco) Act, it is an offence to sell tobacco products to someone under 18.
First-time offenders can be fined a maximum of $5,000. Repeat offenders can be fined up to $10,000.
Those under 18 who are caught smoking more than once must attend mandatory counselling sessions and pay a $30 fine.
If not, they will need to appear in court and can be fined up to $300.
First-time offenders convicted of selling cigarettes by the stick can be fined a maximum of $10,000 or jailed up to six months or both.
