The GEG bill, officially known as the Control of Tobacco Products and Smoking Bill 2022, seeks to ban the use, possession and sale of cigarettes and vape products to those born after 2007.

The signatories, including Southeast Asia Tobacco Alliance executive director Dr Ulysses Dorotheo, said Malaysia was at a critical juncture in history with the GEG Bill, which will be able to prevent youths from getting addicted to nicotine and chronic diseases resulting from smoking.

“It’s now or never. Tobacco products should never have been legalised in the first place. The fact that cigarettes are still sold legally today is a historical abnormality that should be corrected.

“Those opposing the GEG policy have predictably been Big Tobacco and its front groups and allies, using a slew of misinformation and unsubstantiated claims about harm reduction and illicit trade,” he said in a statement today.

Dorotheo said recent calls to postpone the passage of the bill are a trademark delay tactic of the tobacco industry.

The group, he added, will give its unwavering support from the international tobacco control community to Malaysia’s health ministry in its visionary effort to strengthen tobacco control through its GEG policy.

It said the tobacco pandemic has taken the lives of more than 28,000 Malaysians and eight million people globally.

They said countries with similar GEG policies have managed to reduce their adult smoking prevalence, including Panama (5.3%), New Zealand (9.4%), Hong Kong (9.5%), Australia (10.3%), Finland (10.6%), Singapore (10.1%), and Canada (13%).

These countries, they said, have applied stringent tobacco control measures according to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to which Malaysia is also a party.