The government’s goal to reduce smoking prevalence in Malaysia to 15% by 2025 can be achieved if it also empowers smokers desperate to kick the habit with the tools they need.
Several local studies and a recent public survey by CodeBlue and the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy found significant prevalence of e-cigarette use among people who never smoked and in dual users of tobacco and vape.
Nurul Izzah Anwar supports the cohort smoking ban, but Ong Kian Ming says the Tobacco and Smoking Control Bill should go through the Health PSC first, while Charles Santiago moots a cost-benefit analysis.
Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy CEO Azrul Mohd Khalib says a QR code can be generated on MySejahtera only for users born before 2005 to purchase tobacco products.
Malaysia has fallen behind targets with 21.3% smoking prevalence in 2019, nearly 3 percentage points higher than the 18.5% goal for that year in the National Strategic Plan for Tobacco Control.