The Health Ministry will not retract its decision in prohibiting smoking, as well as closing down the smoking room at the Parliament building.

Its minister, Dzulkefly Ahmad said he and his deputy, Dr Lee Boon Chye, the ministry’s head of Tobacco Control Unit Dr Nor Aryana Hassan, and Disease Control Division director Dr Norhayati Rusli had informed the matter to Dewan Rakyat Speaker Mohamad Ariff Yusof when they paid a courtesy call on him this morning.

"During the meeting, we conveyed to him the Health Ministry’s stand that the closing of the smoking room at the Parliament building was in tandem with Article 8 of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and Regulation 11 of the Tobacco Product Control Regulations 2004," he said in a press statement today.

 Dzulkefly said enforcement of the regulations showed that protecting the people’s health was important and it had to start from the Parliament.

Hence, the ministry would not withdraw the decision to close the smoking room at the Parliament building, he added.

However, he said, it was agreed during the meeting that an alternative smoking area outside the Parliament building would be provided.

He said in an effort to achieve the target of “zero smoking” in the Parliament building and the cafeteria at the premises, assistance to quit smoking had been made available by the ministry, with the cooperation of its partner, mQuit, at the Parliament lobby.

The Health Ministry had gazetted the Parliament area as a prohibited smoking area since last Monday, and an MP was among eight individuals who had been served with a notice for smoking in the building.

-- Bernama