HERE are places and spots where smoking and vaping are banned: You can't light up inside public establishments and on transportation. Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship have long been banished from the airwaves.
Cigarette or tobacco product packs warn smokers of ill effects, with graphic images that kill the appetite, if not the craving, for a puff. Public vending machines and e-commerce sites are barred from selling cigarettes.
Die-hard smokers will get a blander kick: nicotine concentration now packs at 35mg/ml per stick but will be condensed to 20mg/ml by October next year. Smokers might compensate for this weaker effect by smoking two sticks at one go, leading to increased cigarette purchases.
The same lower concentration will also be imposed on vape cartridges by October 2026.
Penalties for violating these strict anti-smoking rules
remain with fines of up to RM10,000 and a two-year
prison sentence. Yet, cigarettes still have their last brick-and-mortar retail strongholds: restaurants and convenience stores.
No regulations have ever been introduced to stop cigarette sales in these establishments. The closest is a ban
on minors from buying them, at least in person.
Since a restaurant ban is voluntary, mamak restaurants are pressing with the anti-smoking drive.
The Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Operators Association (Presma) has pledged to fully stop cigarette sales at its premises next year. Currently, 50 per cent of Presma restaurant owners don't stock cigarettes. This long-awaited move will require more stringent health inspections to catch recalcitrants who knowingly light up outside restaurants and pubs, on emergency staircases and inside public toilet stalls.
Perhaps the blanket mamak restaurant ban will accomplish zero-tolerance environment for smoking, where previous campaigns, even a state fatwa, was ineffective. Another dimension to ending smoking could be the influence of parents and adults.
Any child who has ever smoked will tell you it started by following the examples of adults — likely parents, older siblings, relatives or family friends — who puffed away incessantly. Unable to buy cigarettes? Easy. Teenagers simply filch a few from unsuspecting adults. Some parents and adults may chide minors for smoking, but most are oblivious to their subtle but powerful influence.
A "family" campaign could encourage adults to avoid smoking in full view of children, as they inadvertently provide free advertising for a new generation of smokers. It's ironic that, for all the laws and campaigns to discourage smoking, the habit's vicious cycle continues at home.
If a friendly campaign to curb family influence fails, the government may have to impose tougher measures, though it'll take some doing. One such measure: penalise adults who persistently smoke in the presence of children. Draconian, you might say? Not if these indifferent adults realise the lethal effects second-hand smoke has on children