KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC) secretary-general Muhammad Sha’ani today said that the reason his organisation and two others have filed a lawsuit for a judicial review against Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa is because children are no longer attracted to conventional cigarettes but electronic smoking devices instead.

Reports from as far back as 2014 have shown that vape and e-cigarette use has risen among children, he told reporters during a press conference held at the Royal Lake Club in Kuala Lumpur this morning.

“Global data has shown that children are not attracted to normal or conventional cigarettes.

“But the use of vapes and e-cigarettes has increased abruptly,” he said.

Since 2015, MCTC has been calling for the government to ban electronic smoking devices, but the latter has instead chosen to regulate the industry, he said.

Voice of Children (VoC) chairman Sharmila Sekaran explained that the civil organisations involved in the lawsuit were concerned about the impact nicotine could have on children as the latter are still in their developmental stage.

Certain categories of children were more vulnerable to a nicotine addiction, especially those who come from underprivileged and dysfunctional backgrounds, which would already compromise their development, she said.

“Even the slightest exposure to an addictive substance like nicotine cannot be underestimated,” she said, adding that the issue is very hard to police.

Besides that, MCTC president Dr Murallitharan Munisamy, who was also present, clarified that the timing of the lawsuit had nothing to do with the coming elections in six states, saying that it was motivated by legal reasoning, not political incentives.

The filing was a last resort that the group and its partners in the suit had turned to after exhausting all other legal avenues, he added.

He explained that the group’s lawyers had advised that it needed to show a delay between the health minister’s gazette for the exemption of nicotine under the Poisons Act and the implementation of the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Bill 2023.

He also stressed that health advocates are generally politically neutral and will support whatever is best for society and public health.

“It’s not a filing made out of anger, but it’s that we’ve gone through (all other legal avenues) and we feel that our children ... are at risk.

“So we see this as the next logical move today,” he said.

He added that he hopes that the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Bill 2023 will be passed soon; however, in the meantime, he also hopes that obtaining a stay for the exemption of nicotine from the Poisons List will prevent any casualties.

Last Friday, MCTC, along with VoC and the Malaysian Green Lung Association, filed a lawsuit in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur via a judicial review application to quash the part in the health minister’s March 31, 2023 gazetted order which removed vape liquids and vape gels from the Poisons List, or alternatively a court declaration that that part of the minister’s order is void.

The two respondents named in the lawsuit are the health minister and the Malaysian government.