Health Ministry vows to table smoking products bill in this Parliament session

Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa has given her assurance that the ministry will table the long-delayed anti-smoking and vape control bill before the current Parliament session concludes on Nov 30.

“The bill will be tabled before the end of this (parliamentary) session. We will get it done,” she told Malaysiakini yesterday.

She was responding to claims by her predecessor Khairy Jamaluddin that several ministers had blocked the legislation.

Khairy, the architect of the original bill, said the cabinet's handling of the matter was “absolutely shambolic”.

However, Zaliha did not divulge further details but only said, “That’s by the end of this month”.

Meanwhile, she was quoted by the New Straits Times yesterday as saying that she was “still waiting for a date to table the proposed law”.

There are only eight days remaining of the current Dewan Rakyat meeting.

The bill in question, known as the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Bill, was supposed to have been tabled for a second reading in the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 10.

However, it was postponed to make way for government affairs in Parliament.

Important aspects

The highly contentious bill covers several important public health aspects.

READ MORE: KINIGUIDE | What is the ‘Generational End Game’ bill, and why do some oppose it?

One of them is to reintroduce controls over nicotine products including vapes - after the government removed the substance from the Poisons Act in March.

The bill also introduces measures meant to prevent anyone born from 2007 onwards from buying tobacco or nicotine products, giving the bill its Generational End Game (GEG) moniker.

Previously, a source in the Health Ministry told Malaysiakini that tobacco lobbyists were also exerting pressure on the government to torpedo the GEG.

Meanwhile, health watchdog CodeBlue claimed that the cabinet had decided to drop provisions related to the tobacco and vape ban based on age from the bill.

According to CodeBlue, Attorney-General Ahmad Terrirudin Mohd Salleh was of the opinion that the GEG provisions were “unconstitutional” because they violated Article 8 of the Federal Constitution which guaranteed equality before the law.

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