COLUMN ONE : Clearing the Air in Singapore : Thanks to an ambitious crusade, the nation now has the world’s lowest smoking rate. But the growing number of young female smokers has some officials fuming.

The scene at the local Hard Rock Cafe was jumping on a Saturday night. Elvis was blaring out of the sound system, and the staff could barely keep up with the demand for burgers and beer. That’s when the American woman lit a cigarette.

The music seemed to choke in mid-croon. The American’s table was surrounded by a wall of waiters. The offending butt was plucked from the startled woman’s hand and whisked out of the restaurant.

Long known as a laboratory for controversial social engineering, tiny Singapore has set itself the ambitious goal of becoming the world’s first smoke-free country. And while other government campaigns--such as a plan to encourage college-educated men to mate with women of equal intellect--have proved less than a popular success, the no-smoking crusade is being held up as a model for the world to emulate.

“Singapore has done more than any other country to eliminate smoking,” said Dr. Judith Mackay, an adviser on smoking for the World Health Organization in Hong Kong. “It was really the first country to get cracking back in 1971, and the measures that it has adopted have far outstripped any other country. I am perpetually using Singapore as an example to others.”

Back when Singapore was a British colony, smoking was permitted just about everywhere, including movie theaters and buses, just like in London.

But Lee Kuan Yew, who served as the country’s prime minister from 1959 until 1990, kicked his own personal cigarette habit and determined, as with so much in this country, that his compatriots must learn from his experience.

The war on smoking has become a part of a national mania for health, which the government has orchestrated to bring down health care costs and keep the country competitive economically. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Lee’s successor, was quoted in April as telling Singaporeans, “You have a personal responsibility to stay healthy.”

Starting in 1971 with a ban on cigarette advertising, the government has since prohibited smoking in restaurants and other air-conditioned public places, including hairdressers, banks, billiard halls, bowling alleys, buses and taxis. All government offices are smoke-free.

The ban is enforced with a hefty $300 fine. Last year, the Ministry of Environment made 339 arrests for smoking in public places.

“There was a lot of unhappiness in the restaurant industry when the ban was introduced,” recalled Loh Meng See, chairman of a parliamentary health committee. “They thought they were going to lose business. But since the ban applies equally, no one lost.”

Assessing the broader public support for the measures is more difficult because the press has not aired any views critical of the government campaign. But anecdotal evidence suggests that the anti-smoking drive is popular among adults.

Tobacco companies were also barred from sponsoring sporting events; cigarette vending machines and incoming duty-free cigarettes were prohibited, and last month the government announced legislation to halt the sales of cigarettes to people younger than 18.

Starting in September, even foreign magazines such as Time and Newsweek, which carry cigarette advertising, will be barred from the island.

Singapore Airlines, which became the first regional carrier to limit smoking in 1988, now has a blanket ban on smoking on flights of four hours or less.

As a result of these restrictions, as well as a relentless public campaign of education against the perils of tobacco, the smoking rate has declined from 23% of Singapore’s 3 million citizens in 1977 to about 15% today, the smallest proportion of smokers for any country in the world.

About 25% of adults in the United States still smoke, according to WHO statistics. But the contrast with Asian countries is even more dramatic: The number in China is 30% and neighboring Indonesia over 40%.

“Our goal is to try to arrive at the stage where only a minimal number of Singaporeans are smokers,” Health Minister Yeo Cheow Tong said in an interview. “While our stated goal of becoming a smoke-free country is a little Utopian, what we’d like to do is get down to an absolute minimum of about 10% by the year 2000. It’s going to take a long time as the numbers get smaller.”

Despite all of its missionary work against smoking, the government was handed a nasty shock recently when a Health Ministry survey showed that in the last five years, the number of smokers has begun to creep up again, from 13.3% of the population in 1987 to 15.7% this year.

Particularly alarming were statistics showing that the number of young smokers had increased by nearly 4%, especially among young women. Young female smokers, while still a small percentage of the total, have increased dramatically--more than any other category of smoker.

Historically, women have never smoked to any great extent in Asia, so that in Japan, where 37% of the population smokes, 61% of males are smokers but only 14% of women. Thus, statistics showing a rise in young women smokers in Singapore were especially troubling.

“It’s the trend we’re worried about,” Parliament’s Loh said. “The number of first-time smokers is increasing. Young people want to experiment and then get hooked. It’s a vexing problem.”

As a result of the survey’s gloomy results, the government proceeded with the younger-than-18 cigarette ban and said it is considering a law to ban smoking in discos, which along with bars had escaped the previous ban. But some experts fear that such measures may be counterproductive.

“Youths in Singapore are becoming more independent-minded,” the WHO’s Mackay said. “I think that smoking among young people may represent a rebellion against the strict measures the government has taken.”

One high school in Singapore still holds a weekly public caning for students caught smoking. In most other schools, children are sent by “discipline masters” to mandatory smoke-cessation clinics run by the Singapore Cancer Society.

“Cigarettes have become a status symbol among the young like designer jeans,” said Beena Devi, a doctor who runs the clinics. “We have to get to the young population, especially females, at an early age with health education in the primary schools.”

So popular is smoking becoming among young people that the most fashionable disco in the country, a two-story dance hall appropriately called Fire, pumps machine-made smoke onto the dance floor as a special effect. “We’re really going to suffer if they ban smoking. When people drink they like to smoke,” said Deen Shahul, owner of Fire.

“I think a lot of girls smoke because of peer pressure,” said an 18-year-old woman quoted by the Strait Times newspaper. “It’s also because they think that it is cool and gives them an adult and sexy look.”

Nonetheless, the government has rejected advice to sharply increase the price of cigarettes, which some critics believe would cut down on smoking by young people. Officials said that Singapore was concerned that if prices get too far above those in surrounding countries, it would encourage smuggling.

A pack of cigarettes now costs about $2.20, more than half of which is government taxes. But many news vendors sell tobacco by the individual cigarette, which makes it more affordable to young people.

The next smoking battleground is likely to be the workplace, where Singapore lags behind the United States and Canada in legislating to protect workers against secondhand smoke.

“A very small percentage of employers are providing smoke-free environments,” Health Minister Yeo said. “We’ve been very disappointed.”

Richard Png, a spokesman for an industry lobby, the Tobacco Manufacturers and Importers Assn., said that his group supports creating no-smoking zones rather than banning smoking in the workplace.

The government is also concerned that Singapore’s tough no-smoking rules may be discouraging some tourists from visiting the country.

A Singapore-financed survey of Japanese showed that a downturn in tourism from Japan was mainly attributable to two concerns: a lack of golf facilities and strict no-smoking rules. After all, Japan still permits general cigarette advertising, and tobacco sales are booming.

Outdoor restaurants, where smoking is still permitted, are usually packed with foreigners unable to make it through a meal without a puff.

Occasional letters in the newspapers call for an outright ban on smoking in the country, pointing out that earlier this year the government outlawed chewing gum. Paradoxically, the chewing gum ban, designed to deter vandalism on subway trains, removes a popular substitute for smoking.

The chewing gum ban, like the prohibitions against smoking, are just two examples of the government’s social engineering efforts. The plan to encourage college-educated Singaporeans to marry each other was quietly dropped. It had used reduced school tuition fees as an inducement, but apparently failed to overcome the desire of Singaporean men to find in a potential mate such traditional qualities as beauty, wealth and good homemaking skills.

Other government social efforts have included an ongoing campaign to get the Chinese majority in Singapore to have more children after census figures indicated that Malay and Indian families were growing faster. The government has also taken it upon itself to make it a crime to fail to flush the toilet, which is strictly enforced. Spitting and littering were greatly reduced with similar campaigns.

But government officials said that while it is an attractive idea, a nationwide ban on smoking just isn’t workable.

“No matter how hard we try, there will always be a small group of smokers in Singapore,” said Yeo, the health minister. “My approach is to persuade first and then if that doesn’t work, legislate.”

Smoke Signals

Singapore’s aggressive anti-smoking campaign has racked up impressive results, giving the tiny nation one of the lowest smoking rates in the world. Here’s a sampling of the percentage of some nations’ population of puffers in 1991:

Country Total Males Females Singapore 15.7 29.5 1.5 China 30 62 8 Japan 37 61 14 Britain 30 31 29 U.S. 25 28 24 Thailand 25 46 4 Malaysia 21 41 4 Indonesia 40 75 5

Source: World Health Organization