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Singapore: The Malaysian government has been accused of caving into big tobacco and the vaping industry after joining New Zealand in unwinding plans to ban future generations from smoking.
Under a proposed tobacco control bill in the South-East Asian nation, people born on or after January 1, 2007 would have been prohibited from buying and consuming cigarettes and other products including vapes.
There are about 5 million smokers, most of them men, in Malaysia.Credit: Wolter Peeters
It was put to parliament last year as the government of then New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern passed pioneering legislation outlawing the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 2009.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has since outlined his desire to push through similar reform in the UK.
New Zealand’s new centre-right coalition, however, has announced it will repeal the world-leading laws there, citing the impact it would have on tax revenue.
The Malaysian government has now also removed the generational ban from its bill, following advice this month from Attorney-General Ahmad Terrirudin Mohd Salleh that it would be “unequal treatment before the law” and therefore unconstitutional.
The decision has prompted opposition MPs to claim in parliament this week that Malaysia had given into the powerful tobacco lobby.
Former Malaysian health minister Khairy Jamaluddin, who devised the so-called “generational end-game” for smoking, said he was appalled the government had reneged on a commitment to see the landmark changes through.
“I know for a fact the vape industry has been lobbying the government to make sure there is no intergenerational ban,” he said.
“Another group that has been lobbying hard are your small coffee shop owner associations. They make commissions from the sale of cigarettes and they are a strong vote bank.
“They are usually quite prominent small businessmen in districts and these guys have a lot of sway on their elected representatives. They’ve come out even in my time to say ‘this is ill-advised, we don’t like this’.”
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim speaks during an appearance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco a fortnight ago.Credit: San Francisco Chronicle
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was reportedly meeting with representatives from tobacco giant Phillip Morris International on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September as part of his bid to bring more foreign investors to the country.
It is not suggested such discussions factored into the revision of incoming anti-smoking measures in Malaysia.
But Jamaluddin described as “flimsy” and “without legal basis” the government’s reasoning that generational prohibition was unconstitutional and susceptible to legal challenge. A former member of UMNO, the previously all-powerful Malay party that is now a junior partner in Anwar’s ruling coalition, Jamaluddin said that question should be left to the courts to decide, not the attorney-general.
Anwar’s office and a spokesman for Malaysian Health Minister Zaliha Mustafa were contacted for comment.
Mustafa told reporters on Tuesday a generational ban was not being abandoned altogether but had been postponed to focus on ensuring tighter regulation on vapes and other tobacco substitutes including to prevent their sale to minors.
“We have not forgotten entirely. We are pushing it aside and focusing on the priorities,” she said.
Liew Chin Tong, a deputy minister in Anwar’s government, also defended the approach.
He referenced Australia’s introduction of plain packaging in 2012 as he talked up the strength of the controls, under which advertising and promotion of tobacco products is outlawed and which gives the health minister powers over the display of cigarette packets and labels.
“The ‘[ban] or nothing’ narrative put forward by a former health minister is a false dichotomy,” he said on Facebook.
“After decades finally there will be a dedicated and stand-alone act controlling the use of tobacco and that in itself is a major achievement in Malaysia.”
According to Malaysia’s National Health and Morbidity Survey, the smoking rate in the country was 21.3 per cent in 2019, down from 22.8 per cent in 2015. It estimated that 4.8 million Malaysians over the age of 15 were smokers, the vast majority of them men.
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