According to her, the tobacco industry often employed tactics and marketing strategies that targeted lower-income earners and children, including the use of intentionally child-friendly product designs.
“In line with this year’s ‘World No Tobacco Day’ theme ‘Protecting Children from Tobacco Industry Interference’, we need to protect the lives of our children and safeguard their best interests. These tobacco industry tactics, from advertising, promotion and sponsorships, need to be exposed, and enforced against,” Roslizawati told FMT Lifestyle.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO) data from 2022, at least 37 million young people aged 13–15 years worldwide used some form of tobacco.
Roslizawati referred to National Health and Morbidity Surveys (NHMS), revealing that there had been a slight drop in cigarette use amongst adolescents from 2022 to 2023. This was countered, however, by a rise in e-cigarette/vape use. There was also an increase in female smokers and vape users.
She quoted a Tobacco Atlas report stating Malaysia suffered 29,457 deaths per year from smoking-related illnesses, with an economic impact reaching RM15 billion.
“Some refer to vaping as purported harm reduction; when ironically it is just harm substitution; substituting the harm of smoking with another harmful act, when the underlying outcome is still smoking addictive nicotine products. The mindset that Electronic Smoking Devices (ESDs) or vapes are less harmful is detrimentally misconstrued,” she said.
Nicotine, found in both cigarettes and ESDs, is known to be addictive, while tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death through Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), Roslizawati said.
She added that the children of smokers were disadvantaged with low birth weight, frequent respiratory diseases, middle ear infections, and an increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Roslizawati described tobacco advertising as pure image advertising, intentionally targeted at youths and adolescents, with ESDs more targeted at children. These included billboard advertising, sports and music event sponsorships, cinema commercials and even social media influencers.
Other factors to be examined, she said, included the smoking behaviour of family members and role models, the social pressure among peers, curiosity and the desire for self-determination among youths.
Quitting smoking could be challenging, she agreed, and had to be tackled through a ‘whole of society’ approach. This included support from all parties to help a smoker build up mental wellness, strength, willpower and determination; and develop the sincerity to seek expert aid in smoking cessation programmes.
Asked how to deal with the problem, Roslizawati said Malaysia needed to ratify Article 5.3 of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) with a Code of Conduct in place for governance and good practices, with transparency and accountability.
This was even more so now that Malaysia has an important role as vice-president of the WHO FCTC Conference on Parties (COP).”
Malaysia recently gazetted its first stand-alone tobacco and vape act, the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Bill (Act 852) on Feb 2 this year.
The Bill will provide for all matters related to the registration, advertising, control over sales and purchase of tobacco products, smoking materials and tobacco substitute products.
Roslizawati said it had been a “tireless and challenging journey’ to get the Bill to this stage. She would only comment on it, however, after its Rules and Regulations had been finalised and shared.
“We have been updated that the Bill will be enforced in June 2024 – we will not pre-empt, but wait for the final enforceable document to be available for public domain,” she said.
Asked about her final thoughts on this year’s “World No Tobacco Day”, Roslizawati stressed that smoking impeded, and was a clear violation of a child’s right to health under the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child.
“We have a great responsibility for our children’s health, physical and mental wellness. Children and youths are our national assets, and should be protected, not exploited. They have the right to live in a smoke-free environment, and the right to smoking cessation support programmes, should the need arise,” Roslizawati concluded.
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