IN the e-cigarette industry's fervent opposition to the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Bill, also called the Generational Endgame (GEG) bill, designed to ban smoking for people born after 2007, one thing has become clear: this enterprise has grown too big. The numbers are staggering.
E-cigarettes, popularly called vapes, this year recorded a 53 per cent spike in sales to RM3.5 billion compared with 2019, and the number of vapers rose by 27 per cent to 1.4 million between 2019 and 2022.
Disposable vape devices command 32 per cent of market share, while the industry workforce surged 110 per cent from 15,000 workers in 2019 to 31,500 in 2022 — 22,500 in general retail stores and 9,000 in specialty shops. These figures were reported in the Malaysian Vape Industry Study 2023, which was commissioned by the Malaysian Vape Chamber of Commerce.
Being a youthful industry, it is natural that the majority of vapers are below 40, 70 per cent of whom also smoke. Vapers spend between RM35 and RM75 weekly on their habit and, interestingly, 70 per cent are Malays.
This could explain why the Health Ministry is downgrading punitive measures in the revised GEG bill, which was supposed to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat today but has been delayed again.
The revised bill supposedly had a "soft landing" approach — educational enforcement and drastically cutting down on compounds against errant suppliers and underage offenders. The ministry's compromise appears economically sound, appeasing industry anxiety, but is medically troubling.
Like old-school cigarettes, e-cigarettes are laced with harmful chemicals that cause lung and heart diseases, on top of the known side effects of coughing, shortness of breath, eye irritation, headaches, dry and irritated mouth and throat, and nausea.
Like smokers, there is no schooling vapers on just how hideous the stuff is, until it is too late when they suffer from the worst medical effects.
The dilemma is the same in other industries providing crucial livelihoods but have adverse effects: oil pollutes the environment, nuclear power carries horrifying risks, telecommunication towers transmit electromagnetic radiation, and so on. The vape industry's economic gains are just too enticing, therefore, our health concerns have to take a backseat.
We can't say we are surprised at the absence of regulations on e-cigarette sales after the ministry removed liquid nicotine from the list of controlled substances that can be taxed under the Poisons Act. But this compromise might present the government with the opportunity to tax this lucrative industry, so lucrative that Big Tobacco is transitioning from good old-fashioned sticks to the electronic fix.
Vape taxation should just be as punitive as cigarettes: 58.6 per cent at retail, which may spawn a smuggler's paradise, like cigarettes.
Understandably, the vape industry will complain, to which Big Tobacco will quip, "welcome to our world". While a substantive "sin tax" can be levied, the paradoxical reality is that in absorbing the pain, the people must never be deprived of their enslavement to their vices.