Tobacco companies are setting a very bad example for our youths and they should be taught how to behave ethically if civility and persuasion do not work. They are openly showing their defiance by holding a TV quiz show (at 10.30pm on Wednesdays), advertising autumn and winter clothing on a Malaysia-based newspaper website, and bringing in a R&B pop star to perform in Penang soon.

All these were done after Health Minister Chua Jui Meng had signed the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control recently. This is tantamount to utter disrespect for the World Health Organisation guidelines as it did for the Malaysian government.

These are the same companies that are trying to convince schools and organisations to allow them to tell our youths not to smoke. Indeed, the tobacco industry should be given "the biggest joke of the year" award because:

• Their anti-smoking campaign contradicts common business sense. If the present generation of smokers is to die in years to come and there are fewer people to take up smoking because of the effectiveness of their campaign will certainly affect their profit. It is apparent right now that they are already fighting for their "rightful" market share when the government is trying to control their marketing activities. What makes you think that they are going to give up their expected quota of new smokers by their anti-smoking campaigns for youths?
• We are allowing a fox to take care of our chicken coop if we permit them to run youth anti-smoking campaigns. It is against the very grain of their vested interest. The industry cannot convince our youths not to smoke when it is openly promoting the products.

It is pointless trying to persuade these companies to adhere to a total advertising ban, including brand stretching. This has been going on for too long and they are exploiting every legal loophole to their advantage.

If they can carry out such outrageous attempts to defy the government's expressed intention, we cannot let them handle any social programme because they are an exceedingly bad example for any Malaysian to emulate.