More than 1 million Malaysians have signed up against the generational end game on smoking, a gradual and annual increase in the age limit for tobacco purchase by one year each year until no one is allowed to buy it, which has already been in place since the beginning of the year (2023) in New Zealand and is threatened to be implemented in other countries and territories by their governments. In Malaysia, however, it was proposed by the government that the smoking quagmire should include alternative smoking in its electronic form. Given Malaysia’s population of 33.57 million, the percentage who signed the petition amounts to 3% of their total.
Over a million Malaysians signed a petition against so-called generational smoking at the end of the game, arguing that it would create more problems than it solves. One of the main arguments against the annual increase in the age limit for tobacco purchase and the gradual subsequent smoking ban is that it violates the rights and freedoms of Malaysians to make their own choices. Smoking is still a legal activity that the nation’s adults can choose to participate in or not.
The petition against a phased smoking ban, which gathered more than 1 million signatures from Malaysians, also attracted the attention of the Malaysian state’s judicial authorities, calling for the state, government and parliamentarians to abide by the constitution.
Malaysia’s former chief judge, Tun Zaki Tun Azmi, suggested examining the legal, constitutional and criminal consequences of such prohibitive laws, stating that “one simply cannot turn a blind eye to the unbreakable legal risks it presents”.
According to Tun Zaki, a gradual ban on smoking by the entire population may eventually lead to discrimination against certain groups of people. In a New Straits Times op-ed, he noted that the Federal Constitution promises every citizen fair and equal treatment under the law, and that depriving a generation of consenting adults from exercising their political freedom, while others are free to do as they please, is unjust. He also warned that such prohibitive laws may be impossible to enforce and could lead to an increase in criminal activities across the country.
Tun Zaki advised that Malaysia should adopt harm reduction measures that provide people with less harmful alternatives to cigarettes as a more humane approach to a smoke-free society, such as those used in countries such as Japan where the use of heating tobacco is widespread but vaporizers are banned, the United Kingdom, where their use is also encouraged by the state, and New Zealand, where the same applies as a restriction from 2023, exempting alternative smoking in electronic form.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 