KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry will table a new Act in Parliament to ban smoking and possession of tobacco products, including vape, to the generation born after 2005, in a move called Generational End Game.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said he hoped the new legislation would be passed by Parliament as tobacco consumption is the leading cause of cancer and contributes to 22 per cent of cancer deaths.
The cost to treat lung cancer due to smoking was estimated at RM132.7 million, he said.
"It is one of those strange things where something which has a direct link to cancer is still being allowed to be consumed in every country in the world.
"(With the Act), it means if you are now aged 17 in Malaysia, and if the Parliament passes the Act, you will never be legally able to buy cigarettes in this country ever again.
"It will reduce the number of new smokers and the time will come where there will be no more smokers in Malaysia," he said at the World Cancer Day 2022 celebration themed Close the Care Gap held at the National Cancer Institute (IKN) in Putrajaya today.
Khairy said their efforts would certainly be opposed where talks of black market tobacco sales, poor enforcement and that people should have the freedom to choose would surface.
"Of course, we will have challenges in enforcement and black markets. But those are not excuses for us to continue to allow the sales (of such products) that cause cancer to our young people.
"We hope with this step, we will spare our future generation from being exposed to cigarettes and tobacco," he said.