Malaysia is ready to adopt a similar smoking ban as New Zealand’s, while Singapore is slightly more cautious.
Singapore and Malaysia are both considering adopting a smoking ban for the next generation similar to that of New Zealand’s.
Malaysian health minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, announced he will table a new Tobacco and Smoking Control Act in the upcoming parliament meeting during February 28-March 24. The new bill will replace current tobacco product control legislations and will also regulate e-cigarettes and vapes. In addition, it will also enforce what Jamaluddin calls “a generational end-game” for smoking.
“To me, the allocation for this generational end-game must be created to ensure that there comes a time when the new generations in this country will no longer know what a cigarette is,” said Khairy in a new yearmessage to the ministry of health. “…this allocation will enable smoking to be phased out in stages until one day in future, Malaysia will be a smoke-free country.”
No proposed date for the ban or the year of birth for people who would be effected by the ban has been announced.
In Singapore, senior minister of state for health, Koh Poh Koon, said the the government is open to the idea of a cohort smoking ban and will study New Zealand’s ban to see how New Zealand implements the ban, its effectiveness, and how it might be applied to Singapore.
However, he cautioned that a few considerations would need to be taken into account. One is that young Singaporeans are generally not taking up smoking, unlike in other countries. “Our youths today no longer see smoking as glamorous, and are aware of its harms,” he said. Instead, the bigger concern is e-cigarettes. "If vaping becomes entrenched among the younger generation, it undoes all the progress we have made on curbing smoking, and will take an enormous effort over many years to curb its use,” said Koh, also poining out that while New Zealand is banning smoking, it promotes vaping as an alternative.
According to Koh, the most effective measure to reduce the smoking rate in Singapore has been increased tobacco tax.