Impose excise duty on e-cigarettes, vapes without nicotine too, MCTC urges govt

SHAH ALAM - The Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC) urges the government to also impose excise duty on e-cigarette and vaping products including those without nicotine as part of the revised Budget 2023 proposal.

This, it said was because a large part of the e-cigarette and vaping product market consisted of products which did not contain nicotine.

On top of that, it said the consumption of these products make up a large part of the purported RM2 billion per year income reported by the vape industry.

While some quarters continued to position the products containing nicotine as part of smoking cessation strategies, it said it must be understood that products which did not contain nicotine only have a role in terms of recreational use.

It said in line with the public health principles and the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC ) Taxation and Price Measures, these unsafe products needed to be taxed as well.

“These will also be an important strategy in making them unaffordable and unavailable to children and adolescents who are prohibited from utilising them.

“As such, the Council strongly recommends to the government that all e-cigarette and vaping products should be taxed in line with public health principles.

“The actual tariff of these products may differ in accordance to presence or absence or nicotine; as well as according to the amount of nicotine content within these products,” it said in a statement, today.

It said as the government planned to channel half of the revenue collected from a new excise duty on e-cigarette and vaping products containing nicotine to the Health Ministry, the Council also called for the ministry to also play its part in utilising the revenue for further strengthening smoking cessation efforts.

The efforts, it said included funding education programmes and widening availability of services including therapeutics across the country.

In addition to that, MCTC highlighted that for individuals at high risk, efforts should be focused on risk-reduction by getting them to cease their nicotine addiction.

It noted that the mission of tobacco control still remained incomplete amidst the measures laid out earlier.

“There is still no overarching framework to govern the conventional cigarette, e-cigarette and vape landscape, and this opens up many loopholes in terms of regulation and enforcement of the industry even in terms of revenue collection.

"As such, MCTC exhorts the government to immediately hasten the tabling and approval of the Control of Tobacco Products and Smoking Bill.

“The Bill is crucial to ensure that all stakeholders are able to play their proper roles in ensuring the safety and welfare of all Malaysians, especially for generations to come." it said.

During the re-tabling of Budget 2023 yesterday, Finance Minister and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the government will impose an excise duty on nicotine-based products used in electric cigarettes.