Chewing Gum in Singapore

Yesterday Faisal and I were discussing how clean Singapore is with a very good friend of ours. That is when I first came to know that chewing gum is banned in Singapore because the city-state was having a lot of problems controlling the litter from chewing gum. Imagine my shock and surprise! How can something like a chewing gum be banned....something which is a staple for many people?

When he told me this it occured to me that I have never seen chewing gum in any of the stores in Singapore. But how come I never noticed that there is no chewing gum on sale anywhere?

Today when we were coming back from "Mustafa" in a car, our friend offered us chewing gums. We gladly accepted the "rare commodity" when the cab driver gave us all an angry look. He asked us , "Did you bring this from Malaysia?". To this our friend answered that he had brought it from the States. The cab driver replied that if he had been caught then he would have been jailed for six months and fined $S2000. Our friend ofcourse was unaware of the ban and he vowed that he would never carry chewing gum in Singapore.

We had a good laugh over this while enjoying our chewing gums. We covered our mouths trying to hide the gum because the cab driver very coolly informed us that we would be heavily fined if we are seen chewing these forbidden items.