Health Ministry planning to ban vaping in public

KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry plans to ban vaping in public places under a new law but may permit prescribed use of e-cigarettes for patients to quit smoking if there are evidence showing it helps them to quit, said Deputy Health Minister Dr Lee Boon Chye.

He said that if e-cigarettes could be used by patients to quit smoking, it would have to be prescribed by doctors under the Poison Act.

“We hope we can ban vaping for public use in a new regulation but we have not got the new regulation in place as yet.

“Even if we ban e-cigarettes for public use, we can still, if there is proven benefit, allow e-cigarettes to be prescribed (by doctors) for patients to quit smoking,” he said in a press conference at the 27th Malaysian Urology Conference yesterday.

Dr Lee said if beneficial, e-cigarettes could become a prescribed item like nicotine patches or chewing gum but not sold off the shelf.

In 2015, former health minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam had wanted to ban e-cigarettes but the Cabinet then overruled it and announced that it would regulate it instead.

NGOs had said that the number of e-vapers was still relatively small and the government should nip it in the bud by banning it, as done in Singapore, Thailand and Brunei.

They said banning e-cigarettes should not be compared with cigarettes because cigarette smokers were in the millions and the World Health Organisation had adopted tobacco control measures suited for the situation.

Last year, the Malaysian Association for Adolescent Heath had also called for a total ban of e-cigarettes as it was a path to addiction for the young.

It also cited that apart from clean air, any non-approved product inhaled into the lungs is harmful to health.

Currently, there are two laws under the control of the Health Ministry which regulate smoking and vaping.

Dr Lee said smoking was governed by the Food Act 1983 under the Control of Tobacco Products Regulations while nicotine-containing vaping product was governed by the Poisons Act 1952.

“The sale of nicotine-containing liquid used in vaping device is illegal but if the vape does not use nicotine, there is currently no law or regulation that forbid vaping without nicotine,” he explained.

Dr Lee said a draft law which will be ready in a year or two would control tobacco products as well as non-nicotine products.

Meanwhile, he also said that men tend to delay going to see doctors when they had urinary problems such as incontinence, or having pain and blood in the urine which could be related to stones.

He said awareness level among middle aged men, who usually have the problems, was still low.