Bring back the Generational Endgame: Malaysian youth cannot be sacrificed to industry profits

AS Malaysian youth, we have watched our country move from leading to falling behind in South-East Asia’s fight to end nicotine addiction.

There was a time when Malaysia stood at the forefront of bold tobacco control, when the Generational Endgame (GEG) was introduced as a promising step so that young people like us would not fall into addiction anymore. It made us hope that we’ll witness the day when we won’t see nicotine products anywhere.

What happened? How did a country that once moved towards phasing out nicotine products end up struggling to contain them at all?

At the core of this gap is the delay of GEG, which was introduced as a bold attempt to phase out nicotine access for those born after 2007. It was a promise that Malaysia could gradually end nicotine addiction starting with our generation and those who will come after us.

But that promise has since been softened, reworked, and delayed. GEG did not disappear. It was deferred, absorbed into broader regulatory language and legislative compromises that diluted its original intent.

We are now confronted with the consequences of this delay as we see the normalisation of vape culture among our peers, the ease of access, and the continued targeting of youth through flavours, packaging, and digital advertising ecosystems.

The region is moving forward, leaving Malaysia behind

We are witnessing a critical turning point in Malaysia’s public health history. While eight out of 11 countries across South-East Asia have confronted the tobacco and nicotine industry and banned electronic smoking devices and nicotine products, our generation is locked in a battle against their aggressive proliferation.

For years, the tobacco and nicotine lobby has actively exploited regulatory delays, treating Malaysian youth as an unmonitored testing ground for highly addictive substances. The time for half-measures has passed, our nation must transition from regulating these hazards to eliminating them entirely.

This health crisis is not a sudden phenomenon, but rather the structural consequence of corporate manoeuvring. The premature removal of liquid nicotine from the Poisons List in 2023, contrary to the explicit warnings of the expert Poisons Board, exposed millions of school-aged children to unrestricted retail targeting before protective legislation could even be enacted.

While the recent implementation of the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Act 2024 has finally prohibited blatant online sales and vending machines, the damage to our health landscape is already profound.

With medical experts projecting that treating vaping-related lung illnesses like Evali (e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury) will burden the government with massive fiscal liabilities annually, the argument that the tobacco and nicotine industry offers economic benefit collapses under the weight of future healthcare costs.

To achieve a breakthrough, policymakers must consciously reject the industry's heavily-funded narrative of "tobacco harm reduction".

The assertion that e-cigarettes and nicotine products serve as a benign cessation tool is systematically contradicted not only by significant and continually growing scientific evidence but also by reality on the ground, where vibrant, candy-flavoured disposables are clearly engineered to recruit new, non-smoking youth into lifelong nicotine dependency.

By weaponising localised digital algorithms and placing retail displays inside neighbourhood convenience stores, corporate actors have successfully normalised a dangerous and potentially fatal addiction.

Malaysian youth should not be viewed as passive data points in an industry revenue report; our lived experiences navigating these predatory digital spheres make us vital partners in designing uncompromised health strategies.

Resisting institutional interference

The greatest obstacle to a nicotine-free Malaysia remains the sophisticated level of industry interference within our legislative frameworks.

The quiet, calculated dilution of the historic GEG provision in the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Act serves as a stark reminder of how commercial lobbying can actively disrupt public health governance.

This overt interference directly undermines Malaysia's binding international commitments under the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). When public policy is altered to accommodate industry, the democratic process is compromised, and the physical well-being of the next generation is traded for immediate corporate profit.

The industry’s ambitions are clear: to profit from addiction. It is time for Malaysia’s political leadership to show they care, reject the deceptive narratives of the industry lobby, and protect the human capital necessary for our nation’s future.

Our call to action

If Malaysia is to realign with its public health commitments and regional trajectory, the path forward requires more than incremental regulation. Securing a healthy future for all Malaysians demands immediate, unyielding policy measures:

> Enacting a total ban: Fast-tracking the legislative roadmap to achieve a complete ban on the importation, manufacture, and distribution of all electronic smoking devices and recreational nicotine products.

> Vigorous grassroots enforcement: Intensifying localised crackdowns on illicit digital supply chains and distribution networks that continue to bypass Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Act regulations to target minors.

> Strict application of FCTC Article 5.3: Implementing robust institutional firewalls to bar tobacco and nicotine industry from interfering and influencing public health policy forums.

At the core of MAlaysia’s efforts should be the restoration and strengthening of the GEG framework, returning to its original intent of phasing out nicotine exposure for future generations, while aligning it with broader tobacco endgame strategies that include the eventual phase-out of cigarettes as the next step in Malaysia’s long-term public health transition.

This is not a call for new laws. It is a call to uphold an existing one in its original, undiluted form.

SYARAH ISMAHANI, NURUL ADILAH MUHAMMED RIZAKI and AINA MUNIRAH ABDUL LATIF

The writers are youth ambassadors representing Malaysia within a broader Asean youth network campaigning to denormalise the tobacco industry. The campaign is led by the South-East Asia Tobacco Control Alliance.