PETALING JAYA: The government should consider banning vaping altogether as it is easy for children to pick up the habit due to overly convenient access, says the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP).
The association said it found many instances of schoolchildren vaping, with products such as eliquids and vapes readily available to them on online platforms.
CAP president Mohideen Abdul Kader said Parliament must pass the Generational End Game (GEG) Act as soon as possible in view of the overwhelming scientific evidence that ecigarettes and vaping have serious health consequences.“We urge a total ban on ecigarettes and vapes because Parliament should not sacrifice the future of Malaysians to the industry. Those who argue for the rights of individuals who want to vape simply ignore the harm the product does.
“Essentially, there is no moral principle behind such arguments, and the government has the duty to limit an individual’s liberty on the grounds of healthcare,” he said in a statement yesterday.
On June 12, Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said the GEG Bill, after its first reading at the Dewan Rakyat, will be referred to the select committee for fine-tuning.
When the Bill was introduced last year under then-Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, it was also referred back to the select committee for review after resistance from lawmakers.
The Bill is looking to regulate the sale, purchase and consumption of cigarettes and other smoking products among those born in 2007 and later.
Under the Bill, enforcement in relation to the registration, advertising, packaging, sale and use of conventional tobacco products such as cigarettes, cigars, loose tobacco and rolled cigarettes will be enforced for the GEG generation once it is passed.
Any enforcement of laws regarding the sale, purchase and use of products with smoking devices such as vapes, liquid nicotine and others by the GEG generation will come into force at a later date.
Mohideen, however, warned that vaping will be the scourge of the future and be difficult to eliminate unless it is banned now.
He also said that while there has been a drop in cigarette smoking among adolescents, as indicated by the latest National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2022, where the national prevalence dropped from 13.8% in 2017 to 6.2% in 2022, statistics indicate a growing trend of teens transitioning to ecigarettes and vaping instead.
According to the same survey, the number of Malaysian teens aged 13 to 17 using ecigarettes and vaping rose from 9.8% in 2017 to 14.9% in 2022.
“The Health Ministry aptly described the emergence of these products as a public health threat,” he said, adding that the substances in the ecigarette or vape device, when heated, will produce chemicals that can have an inflammatory effect on the lining of the lungs and cause ecigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI).
With thousands of eliquids variants from 3,300 known retailers flooding the market, Mohideen said it is currently impossible to monitor each bottle or brand.
