Political Hurdles in Malaysia’s Vape Ban Plans

Malaysia’s fight against narcotics has shifted onto a new battlefront: vapes. What started as a smoking-cessation aid has evolved to deliver illicit substances. Malaysia is no exception where vapes are used to consume drugs. In response, Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad announced on 9 September 2025 that the government would gradually ban vapes and that inter-departmental consultations on the ban’s legal and economic aspects, and its implementation, were ongoing.

The federal government is taking a standard approach in its policymaking but the unspoken obstacle is politics. The path to a vape ban, as announced by Dr Dzulkefly, will not be straightforward. 

According to Malaysian vaping advocates, the industry was worth at least RM3.48 billion (US$830 million) in 2023, with more than 10,000 retailers, which translates into support for more than 31,500 Malaysians: mostly Malay-Muslim entrepreneurs. Previous attempts to clampdown on vapes in 2015 failed because some politicians framed them as undermining the community’s business interests. With Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration struggling to win over the Malay-Muslim community, the industry appears ready to exploit this weakness to derail the government’s planned ban on vapes.

The government’s handling of the vape issue in recent years has been anything but straightforward. In April 2023, then Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa acted against the advice of the Poisons Board (largely comprising senior civil servants and healthcare professionals) to remove nicotine from the Poisons List. This decision effectively scrapped the sole legal provision that could have curbed the sale of nicotine-laced vapes. Then minister Zaliha said the decision was made to allow vapes to be taxed but it marked a successful end to an industry-led campaign to legalise vapes. Worse, this legalisation allowed vapes to be sold even to children, due to the resulting regulatory vacuum, as non-tobacco nicotine products became unregulated. It was only in October 2024 that the legislative gap was closed through the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Act (Act 852), which made vaping illegal for minors. 

Certainly, Malaysia’s Act 852 is a crucial and comprehensive piece of legislation to better regulate vapes and cigarettes. Yet, its passage was tedious, bogged down by partisan obstruction and delays, turning a crucial process into a prolonged political battle. A significant compromise, made for political convenience, was the removal of the ‘generational end game’ (GEG) provision, first mooted by former Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin in 2022 under the Ismail Sabri administration. (Under the GEG, Malaysians born after 2007 would be prohibited from vaping or smoking.)

An outright ban would require greater political courage but there is no guarantee this will win broad support.

The current government’s poor handling of the vape trade has precedent. More than a decade ago, the cultivation of the kratom plant in the 2010s led to the widespread availability and consumption of the highly inducing kratom juice, creating a new challenge in substance abuse in rural Malaysia. The situation was so serious that the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) publicly urged the government to list kratom under the Dangerous Drugs Act (DDA). (The DDA is the primary law dealing with narcotics in Malaysia; in the most serious cases, the law allows for the death penalty.)

While the recommendation was accepted and in 2015 the Ministry of Health tabled a bill to amend the DDA to list kratom under the Act, lawmakers from all sides spoke out against it, warning of political implications, citing widespread usage of kratom as a painkiller in the predominantly Malay-Muslim northern states. Under pressure, the government withdrew the bill but downplayed it and diverted attention by saying that the amendment process would be handled by the Ministry of Home Affairs. However, the government has not revived the amendments since then: kratom remains regulated under the less stringent Poisons Act and the addiction crisis has worsened.

This problematic episode with kratom abuse offers a sobering reminder that the Madani government’s plans to ban vapes could also be derailed by politics. Like for kratom, the RMP has called for a total ban on vapes to allow for more efficient law enforcement (as there is no way for police or enforcement officers to visually differentiate between drug-laced and drug-free vapes).

Some may argue that a total vape ban would survive any political pressure, as six states have restricted the sale of vapes through their respective local councils. They include the four Islamist party states: Partai Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS)-controlled Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu, and Johor and Pahang, both under the control of Madani government parties. However, these restrictions have a limited impact. For instance, as can be seen in Johor, the products are still widely available. With no tangible enforcement of state-level prohibitions of vapes, these restrictions serve more as symbolic gestures, allowing state leaders to demonstrate an anti-vape stance without spending real political capital.

An outright ban would require greater political courage but there is no guarantee this will win broad support. Opposition politicians from states that restrict vapes may agree for now, but with the lure of federal power in the upcoming general elections, they might switch stances to back the vape industry. Even government leaders may abandon the collective decision to ban vapes. Some may hesitate to spend their political capital on a policy that could be seen as undermining certain Malay-Muslim business interests. This is because Malaysia’s vape industry can wield the race card to steer vote-hungry politicians away from a vape ban. In a racially charged, highly competitive democracy, a vape ban may be optional at best for politicians, even when it is in Malaysians’ best interest to make it mandatory. 

2025/311