There was no issue of the newspaper on Feb 8, 1971, on account of Eidul Azha. The following excerpt has been taken from the previous day’s issue.

SINGAPORE: Singapore will impose a blanket ban after March 1 on all advertisements relating to smoking, the Government has announced.

An official statement said a smoking advertisements unit has been set up by the Ministry of Culture and teams from the unit are at work locating advertisements which must be removed by the end of this month. Neon signs advertising cigarettes have already been switched off in many parts of the city. Newspapers and magazines are not permitted to publish smoking advertisements after Feb 28, while the Government-controlled radio and television stations stopped running such advertisements on Dec 31 — the day after Parliament passed the anti-smoking legislation.

Under the prohibition on advertisements relating to smoking act, which has now received Presidential assent, defiance of the ban may be punished by a fine of up to 2,000 Singapore dollars (about 285 sterling) or six months jail or both. The fine and the jail term are doubled for a second offence.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2021