Official ban ending, chewing gum returns to Singapore after 12 years

[Champ]

SINGAPORE (AP) - Ultra-tidy Singapore is lifting its notorious ban on chewing gum after 12 years - but only for registered users. Gum dealers face jail if they break the rules.

Before Singaporeans think about unwrapping a pack of the Wrigley's Orbit gum that's just started selling here - and only in pharmacies - they have to submit their names and ID card numbers. If they don't, pharmacists who sell them gum could be jailed up to two years and fined 5,000 Singapore dollars, equivalent to $4,031 Cdn.

This Southeast Asian city-state, known for its immaculate streets and tight social controls, outlawed the manufacture, import and sale of chewing gum in 1992 after the country's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, complained that it was fouling streets, buildings, buses and subway trains.

Lee, 80, stepped down as prime minister in 1990 but still wields considerable influence under the title "senior minister."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1835&ncid=1835&e=1&u=/cpress/20040525/ca_pr_on_od/oddity_sticky_issue

[Kolesar]

1. "when they pry it from my cold, wet, jaws"

If you outlaw gum, only outlaws will have gum"

[BurtWorm]

2. Damn gum grabbers!