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Malaysia is to legalize and tax nicotine e-cigarettes

Malaysia is to legalize and tax nicotine e-cigarettes

2023-04-06

Malaysia will exempt nicotine used in e-vape from the country's Poisons Act, the country's health minister announced last Friday, according to reports. The decision opens the door to a large market for legal nicotine e-cigarettes.


The Finance Ministry has included a tax on vape products in its 2023 budget, which was published in the country's official gazette on March 29. The tax, which came into effect on April 1, includes an excise duty of 0.40 Malaysian ringgit (RM) - about 9 cents - per milliliter of nicotine-containing e-liquids. That's the same rate as the current zero-nicotine e-vape.


The decision to remove nicotine from the official list of poisons was controversial because it came hot on the heels of a meeting of the Poisons Committee, which reportedly recommended that consumers not be allowed to sell nicotine. Nicotine was previously available only by prescription, and only for medical purposes. The Poisons Board and tobacco control activists want to maintain bans on the consumption of nicotine products.


The government's decision was formalized in the Gazette Bulletin of 30 March, which described an amendment to the Poisons Act to allow nicotine to be used to prepare a preparation for smoking in liquid or gel form via electronic cigarettes and electronic vaporizing devices.


The order was personally approved by Health Minister Zaliha Mustafa.


Opponents warn of a huge public health crisis


Despite new taxes and nicotine rules, there are still no laws regulating vaping products, advertising or markets. As Malaysia's existing tobacco control laws do not cover e-cigarettes, anti-vape groups say they are now completely unregulated and can even be marketed to children.


M. Murallitharan, chairman of Malaysia's Tobacco Control Council, told the council that children can now smoke e-cigarettes without any legal impact because there is no law against it.


This argument is somewhat disingenuous, as Malaysia already has a large and unregulated vape market and already sells a large number of illegal nicotine-containing vape products - in addition to the zero nicotine products that are legally sold in Malaysian vape shops.


The new law will simply allow nicotine-laced e-cigarettes to be returned from the black market to vape shops, where they can be sold to adults without fear of the occasional police raid.


"This decision could mark the beginning of one of Malaysia's biggest public health crises: the dramatic increase in young people and children becoming addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes." Azrul Mohd Khalib, CEO of the Galen Center for Health and Social Policy, said, "We have already experienced a crisis of non-communicable diseases, with millions of people suffering from diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure and obesity. This is next."


Regulations coming soon


The 2022 Tobacco Products and Smoking Act controls, which were shelved last year, would amend the country's existing rules to regulate tobacco and vaping products. The bill also includes a controversial generation endgame provision that would make it illegal for anyone born after 2005 to sell nicotine consumer products. Malaysia's Generation Endgame law will include e-cigarette products, unlike a similar law passed in New Zealand last year.


Health Minister Zaliha Mustafa announced on April 1 that the government would introduce a similar bill to regulate nicotine use as early as May, Malay Mail Online reported. She said the new bill would also include a generation of end-of-life plans. It is unclear how the new rules and eventual law will affect at least five Malaysian states that have banned the sale of all vaping products.


Change is in fits and starts in Malaysia. Malaysia's previous government announced its intention to regulate and tax e-cigarette products in late 2021, and even came up with a detailed tax plan. The tax plan was quickly scrapped, and controls of the tobacco products and smoking Act that would have regulated e-cigarettes were delayed.


Malaysia is now expected to join several other Asian countries - notably China and the Philippines - with legal, regulated markets for e-cigarettes. Outright bans on e-cigarettes are more common, especially in Southeast Asia.


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