MARCH 9 —  World Health Organisation (WHO) calls on countries to prioritise and accelerate tobacco control efforts as part of their responses to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Tobacco & E-cigarette Survey Among Malaysian Adolescents (TECMA) 2016 released on 21 Feb 2017 by the Institute for Public Health (IKU) further proves the need for urgent and concerted effort by all government agencies involved in the affairs of children to enhance  measures in tobacco control to achieve the Endgame of Tobacco for Malaysia.

Government should make all head of departments responsible to ensure all government premises and compounds are smoke free. There is no reason for any public servant to be smoking during working hours as the regulation on no smoking at all government premises are in force since 2004.

As the TECMA report recommends, “It is imperative that smokefree advocacy towards Malaysian youth should be continued and strengthened. School based programmes, community based programmes and national based programmes must reinforce the message that smoking is harmful and Malaysian youth should stay away from initiating smoking or breathing in tobacco smoke.”

Mere advocacy programme will not achieve the intended objectives if other policies and practices continue to allow contrary practices such as sale of tobacco product in the vicinity of schools, practices of smoking in public, open display of tobacco products in sundry and convenient stores and hawkers spelling of tobacco products in public. We should understand that to prevent the children from smoking is to denormalise smoking or smoking as not a acceptable behaviour. For this, there should not be any smoking in front of any children.

Any form of exception for no smoking should comply to NOT IN FRONT OF ANY CHILDREN. All smokers should be responsible and respect the need to protect the children, not only the direct, second-hand and third-hand smoke but the display of smoking that influences the children to take up the unhealthy habit that no parent want their or others children to emulate.

National Kenaf and Tobacco Board that is currently conducting consultation to implement Licencing of Tobacco and Tobacco Products Regulation 2011, should include a condition that no retail store within and in the vicinity of educational institutions and no smoking zones be allowed to sell tobacco products. No hawking of tobacco products be allowed for effective enforcement of the licensing regulation.

Endgame of Tobacco for Malaysia can only be achieved by effectively reducing new clientele to tobacco industry by protecting the children from this scourge.

* Muhammad Sha’ani Abdullah is the tobacco control co-ordinator of the Federation of Malaysian Consumer Associations (FOMCA)

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.