Following last November’s announcement that the country’s 112 rest houses have been declared as non-smoking zones, on May 9, the Health Ministry announced on its official website that the government will expand the non-smoking areas to all restaurants, coffee shops, hawkers stalls, food courts, recreational parks and other public areas.

At present, a total of 21 places are listed as non-smoking areas. Smokers found smoking in non-smoking areas may be fined up to RM10,000 or face imprisonment for two years if found guilty. Individuals under 18 years old if found to possess, buy, or smoke cigarettes, may be fined RM1,000; while those selling cigarettes to persons under 18 years old will also be fined RM10,000, upon conviction.

Currently, there are 600 million people worldwide each year who died due to a smoking-related cause of death, with 10 percent of the total deaths related to second-hand smokers. In Malaysia, there are about 4 million smokers and about 10,000 smoking-related deaths are reported every year, accounting for 10-12 percent of the country’s overall deaths.

Without urgent action, by 2030, the annual death toll could rise to 800 million or more. Among the 1 billion smokers in the world, almost 80 percent live in low- and middle-income countries.

In recent years, more people are aware of the fact that second-hand smokers face higher health risks compared with first-hand smokers. When a person smokes, most of the health impacts are caused by inhalation of his own smoke, and the second hand smokers around the smoker suffer the similar impacts as well. Therefore, many countries have passed different forms of law to prohibit indoor smoking.

Malaysian Green and Blue Environmental Protection Society president Dr Wong Ruen Yuan said: “Second-hand smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 69 known carcinogens, such as formaldehyde, lead, arsenic and benzene; moreover, carcinogens concentration from second-hand smoke is much higher than first hand smoke.”

Statistics show that in many places, with a ban on smoking in public places, the incidence of heart disease dropped significantly. The introduction of smoke-free workplace is intended to reduce second-hand smoke, which can avoid shortening of life, disease and disability.

Recent studies have shown that the health impact of outdoor is lower than indoor smokers areas. However, it is very difficult to define the boundary for smokers as the smoke emitted from smoker can diffuse to other places. For instance, inside some of apartment buildings, second-hand smoke is easily migrating to other places - mainly through the exhaust ducts and windows.

Therefore, more and more legislation only allow the establishment of smoking areas with adequate physical separation of the smoking area, and to ensure air from smoking area is not circulated to other non-smoking areas.

In many countries, with the imposition of laws and regulations of total ban of smoking in any establishment such as office buildings, schools, airports, hospitals and other places, indoor smoking area is not allowed to be introduced. A ban on smoking areas is not a long-term solution. After all, smokers have their human rights and have to be respected.

Smoking regulations require refinement

Refinement of the regulations concerning non-smoking zones is a good approach to reduce smoking in public area, according to a professor in a university in China. In the city of Beijing for instance, there is a by-law that specifcies smoking area delineation, such as:

  • Designated non-smoking area in a restaurant area must not be less than 50 percent of the total indoor dining area, and the restaurant owner has to gradually expand the area of non-smoking areas, until the abolition of smoking is high encouraged;
  • For hotels, inns, hostels, training centres, resorts and other hospitality-related building, the number of non-smoking rooms should be not less than 50 percent of the total number of guest rooms;
  • Non-smoking floors should be not less than 50 percent of the total floors in any building
  • Smoking is totally prohibited at hotel reception halls, passenger walks, shopping malls and other public areas;
  • Each smoking area at recreational parks, playground, etc shall not more than 100 square metres;
Consideration of implementation level

According to the vice-president of the China Tobacco Control Association, Professor Yang Gonghuan, a ‘smoking ban’ should be elaborated in several key areas for which implementation levels especially enforcement, have to be taken into account. Four key considerations are proposed in this context:

  • Fundamental requirements, such as how to mobilise the relevant government departments, how to propagate the new regulations, what are the tasks for respective competent authorities, etc. Roles and responsibilities of every involved authority has to be clearly defined;
  • Second, to make sure that the non-smoking areas in public places are clearly delineated to explicitly show the ‘Non-smoking area’;
  • Third, to establish monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, such as how to carry out regular assessments, feedback, and so on;
  • Fourth, to deliberate the training mechanism to the relevant enforcers.
For example, how to determine whether a restaurant’s non-smoking area has reached least 50 percent of the total area? How about the delineation? Smoke is able to spread and diffuse to other areas, so how to ensure non-smoking area is totally not affected by smoke? All these issues have to be considered, otherwise, non-smoking area policy will not be able to effectively implement.

Of course we need smoking-related laws, but as the situation can be varied, thus enforcers play significant roles to make the right decision.

The government had done a lot of effort in reducing smoking habits, which including the prohibition of tobacco companies to advertise, printing of horrible health effects of smoking on cigarette packs, as well as the introduction of the ‘Tak Nak’ (Say No to Smoking) campaign, but all are in vain as the number of smokers has been rising ever since then.

“The primary reason for the failure is the lack of sustainable and comprehensive planning and implementation by the government, as well as lax enforcement,” said Jaron Keng, secretary of the Malaysia Green and Blue Environmental Protection Society.

“"For example, the government has converted a lot of places as non-smoking areas, including air-conditioned restaurants, but most of us never see any enforcement activity, therefore the smokers do not take this seriously.”