Influence of Mass Media on Tobacco Use in Malaysia: Regulating Programme Classification and Influencing Public Behaviour

There is an advertisement on Australian tv that shows a sickly-looking lady sitting in a doctor's office being told that she has lung cancer. Seconds later, the ad fast-forwards to the same lady at home, sitting in front of her kids, struggling to tell them that she is dying. This ad holds such a powerful message; that your smoking is not just about you. This ad got me thinking of all the regular smokers back in KL, those trying to quit, those telling people that they want to quit but haven't actually tried hard enough, and those kids standing outside their respective high schools in those olive green trousers, puffing away. So I found myself thinking about tobacco advertising and the effects certain changes to the law could have on reducing tobacco dependence in KL, especially among our youth.

The other day in Public Health Law we were given a task to evaluate the future of tobacco advertising in New South Wales. Here in NSW, laws controlling tobacco advertising are contained in the Public Health (Tobacco) Act 2008, s16-21. The provisions prohibit display of tobacco advertisements from any public place and prevent provision of sponsorships of tobacco products, among others. Here in NSW, there is so much more awareness on the devastating effects of tobacco consumption has on individual health, families and society as a whole, and it has become clear to me how far we are lagging behind.

I was actually hoping that the recently enacted National Kenaf and Tobacco Board Act 2009 would contain more emphasis on reduction of tobacco advertising as a means to reduce smoking in Malaysia or even at the very least, state that it is the Board's social responsibility to assist in the reduction of tobacco dependence in Malaysia. Alas, the Act contains administrative rules as to the borrowing of money, and the grading of kenaf products, et al. There doesn't seem to be any emphasis on public health in there at all.

Malaysian television no longer shows tobacco adverts, that's true, but whatever it is that we are doing, it is not enough. I just pulled up my facebook friends' list and picked out the first ten Malaysian men aged from fifteen to forty and counted how many of them smoke: a predictable 8 out of those ten men smoke, and 7 out of those ten men started in high school. Before I left KL for Sydney, I was pretty accustomed to having people smoke around me without even asking whether I was okay with it; now, my standards have changed. Public perception of smoking here is bordering on the repulsive. Chronic smokers are frowned upon and interrogated on whether they fear premature death. Personally, I think it is fantastic. More and more people here seek help from their doctors to quit the cig, and Malaysia following suit is idealistic, perhaps, but is also something worth aiming for.

So during my group exercise at uni, one of my group mates came up with a brilliant idea: warning of habitual, glamourised cigarette use as part of the program classification prior to the airing of programmes on television. We have 18SX ratings for sexual content and 18PL ratings for politically controversial/adult-themed programmes, why not regulate similarly for heavy drug, alcohol and tobacco use? That way, parents can exercise their discretion to allow/disallow their kids from watching movies with frequent cigarette use. I love this idea and think that it is a good way to influence susceptibility of our youth towards being pulled into smoking. However, this recommendation is not without particular hurdles.

Currently in KL, at least, smoking is everywhere. Our youth see it right outside school, in the clubs, outside restaurants, etcetera. One question that could be asked is: Would this measure be practical at all, or merely an exercise in futility? Prof. Roger Magnusson in the 19th March lecture stated that such a regulation would only likely have positive effects and illustrated this by stating that law influences behaviour. You see, by introducing this regulation, slowly but surely cigarette smoking will gain an increasingly bad reputation and eventually influences public health behaviour throughout the community as a whole. It has happened here in Australia, why not in Malaysia? Change is possible. It's just a matter of making law change to influence how people behave, and programme classification to include more than occasional tobacco use as 18 above is just one of the ways we can do that.