Why Singapore Banned Chewing Gum

Lee Kuan Yew, who died on Monday 23rd March, 2015 at the age of 91, is famed as the man who turned Singapore from a small port into a global trading hub. But he also insisted on tidiness and good behavior - and personified the country's ban on chewing gum. He banned the importation of gum in 1992.

The ban remains one of the best-known aspects of life in Singapore, along with the country's laws against litter, graffiti, jaywalking, spitting, expelling "mucous from the nose" and urinating anywhere but in a toilet. (If it's a public toilet, you are legally required to flush it.)

When Singapore became independent in 1965 it was a tiny country with few resources, so Lee, the country's first prime minister, hatched a survival plan. This hinged on making the city state a "first-world oasis in a third-world region".

By the time the gum ban was implemented, Lee had completed 31 years as prime minister, and had become "senior minister", a big power behind the scenes.

"We were called a nanny state," he told the BBC's Peter Day in 2000. "But the result is that we are today better behaved and we live in a more agreeable place than 30 years ago."

"Putting chewing gum on our subway train doors so they don't open, I don't call that creativity. I call that mischief-making," Lee replied. "If you can't think because you can't chew, try a banana." Says Lee

Since 2004 - as a result of the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement - pharmacists and dentists have also been allowed to sell "therapeutic" gum, to customers with a medical prescription. This includes standard sugar-free gum. So only prescribed gum can be taken.

A Singaporean student studying in London, Pei-yi Yu, also sees advantages in going gum-free. "I have often had the unpleasant experience of getting my body parts into contact with both fresh and stale chewing gum in lecture theatres and classrooms," across the UK, he says.

In Singapore "we have a clean environment" he adds - thanks to Lee.