... Please comment ...
my humble 2 cts...
to ban ciggies altogether, the Govt. risks offending the smokers and the tobacco giants, and hurting their own pockets as dingding75 mentioned. as you can see, the Govt. takes SGD$76.00 per carton of ciggies. each carton containing 10 packs of 20 sticks each.
placing a fine of SGD$5K on the stall owners for illegal sales of ciggies to minors simply doesn't quite work well on the whole, since i noted some of these minors gets someone of legal age to purchase the ciggies for them.
so what to do? they pass laws to curb the sales of "parallel imports", who would enforce the laws and for how long? let's be honest about this. how long have chewing gums been banned and why do we still see folks chewing gum all around?
all these hooha is just nothing short of an excuse to raise the prices of ciggies, and yes, to increase their revenue. still don't see the light? ERP will continue to rise and the jams will be there to stay.