Chewing Gum Back in Singapore?

Seems like the scientist had solved the sticky problem of chewing gum. Read all about it here.

I missed my chewing gum days. Chewing gum were part of the children culture born in my era. I would run around the neighbourhood with my multi racial friends pretending to be “Teenage Mutant” “Ninja Turtles” “Spiderman” “Superman” or even “Smurf”. You weren’t cool if you didn’t chew gums while pretending to be those super heroes.

That was way back in 1983s. The time when Singaporean still rely heavily on it’s own buses as their main transport. The time when the government promised cheap housing to Singaporean. To improved our lives further, the Mass Rapid Transport aka SMRT was introduced. With this new mode of transport, the time taken from one place to the other was greatly reduced.

How does the ban of chewing gum have to do with MRT? That was because some idiots decided to stick the chewing gum on the door sensors of MRT preventing it to function properly and causing disruption to the train services.

Maintenance in high rise public housing was fast becoming a headache with vandals throwing the gum in mailboxes, keyholes and elevator buttons. I used to curse and swear when I stepped on those spent gums. It was really a sticky situation for me. Over the years, this taught me to open my eyes and look before stepping to avoid the mishap from happening again and again.

For the good of all Singaporean, chewing gum was banned in Singapore from 1983 onwards and we became the first country to successfully ban the import of chewing gum. (I wonder if the government going to ban the import of cigarettes as well? You know for the good of all Singaporean.)

In 1999, under the pressure of US, the act was revised to allow the import of medicinal chewing gum provided it must be sold by a dentist or pharmacist. With this invention, will Singaporean finally get their chewing gum fix?