Secondhand smoke drift in homes is both a public health hazard and nuisance in densely populated Singapore, where cigarette smoke can waft from downstairs, upstairs and laterally due to the close proximity of HDB and condominium units, inhabited by almost 95% of the population.

Deadly Health Effects
Studies have identified cancer, heart attack, stroke and depression resulting from chronic secondhand smoke exposure. (1,2) A National University of Singapore study found that secondhand smoke is more toxic than the fumes inhaled by the smoker himself. The higher level of toxins can dissolve upon contact with moist tissues in the lungs or airways and, eventually, end up in the person's bloodstream. (3) One person dies every day in Singapore due to secondhand smoke. (4)

No Workable Recourse
The Community Mediation Centre (CMC) and Community Disputes Resolution Tribunal (CDRT) are often cited as avenues for help, but unfortunately, they do not live up to their goal of resolving cigarette smoke disputes between neighbours.

A Law Ministry spokesman said that CMC received 12 cases of disputes among neighbours involving cigarette smoke in the first six months of 2018. Only in one of the cases did the applicants agree to move to the mediation stage and was resolved successfully. (5)

This works out to a success rate of a mere 8%, and we can understand why. Mediation requires the participation of both parties, and often, smokers would ignore such requests since they are not breaking any existing law by smoking at home.

As for CDRT, it is an onerous process for those with financial resources and time to spare: $25 per photo evidence of smoke on top of the $150 fee, $30 to extract an order, etc. How is one to collect evidence of invisible smoke and prove definitively that the smoke in one’s unit originates from the culprit’s unit? (6)

Only the hiring of a private investigator or illegal drone cameras can take such photos as required by CDRT. The very act of collecting evidence infringes on privacy. The fact that none of the 216 smoking-related feedback received by the HDB in 2017 ended up with CDRT shows that it is a game of attrition. (7)

Considerate Smokers Are the Minority
According to a 2011 poll conducted by pharmaceutical company Pfizer, almost all (97.1%) smokers polled were aware of the harmful effect of secondhand smoke to others, but 58.8% said they continued to smoke in front of their families and friends who do not smoke. As smokers do not even care about smoking in front of their loved ones, common experience has validated that they would not care about the effect of toxic smoke on their neighbours.

WFH - Here to Stay - Exacerbates Impact
The default work from home (WFH) arrangement during the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the impact on the physical and mental health of non-smokers.

Previously, we could get 10-12 hours reprieve when smokers were out at work on weekdays. Now with homes-turned-workplaces, there is no end to the constant, noxious secondhand smoke assault.

Non-smokers Suffer Greatly During WFH
Over a thousand grievances have been voiced on The Straits Times and TODAY Facebook recently regarding neighbours’ smoke. (8,9)

Duty to Ensure Neighbours Not Impacted by Secondhand Smoke
As American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr said: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” The right of a smoking home owner ends where his neighbours are impacted. Smokers should be obligated to ensure that their cigarette smoke does not affect their neighbours, just as we need to ensure that we do not disturb our neighbours’ peace and quiet with excessive noise.

New Regulations Needed
Current laws are totally one-sided, fully defending the smokers when it comes to smoking in residential premises, but providing no safeguard whatsoever for non-smokers.

Requiring smokers not to smoke near windows, to close their windows when smoking or smoke at designated smoking points at residential estates do not deny smokers’ right to smoke, but had been rejected in Parliament previously, citing intrusiveness and enforcement challenges as reasons.

With the increased number of inter-agency enforcement personnel deployed all over Singapore to ensure safe distancing and compliance with Stay-Home Notice, enforcement is no longer an issue.

If noise pollution is protected by law, surely cigarette smoke which kills over 2,000 people in Singapore every year ought to be curbed by new regulations. (10)

Extra measures have to be put in place to address the new situation of working from home, which makes it impossible to escape neighbours’ secondhand smoke.

Workplace Safety and Health Act Should Apply to Home Offices
It is a contradiction that smoking is prohibited in office buildings and factories but allowed in residential buildings, especially now that homes have become offices during WFH. The Workplace Safety and Health Act which protects against “harmful or hazardous substances in any workplace and the exposure levels of persons at work” should apply to neighbours’ smoke infiltration in home offices. (11)

We, the majority non-smokers in Singapore appeal to the Minister for Law, the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment and the Minister for National Development to enact new regulations or expand existing laws to address and resolve neighbours’ secondhand smoke problem. No workable recourse is available now and we cannot be forced to suffer health harms 24/7. Laws have thus far failed to safeguard the health of non-smokers within their homes. With this petition, we urge you to enact new policies to protect our physical and mental health. Thank you.

Liu I-Chun

Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas