This year’s World No Tobacco Day, celebrated on 31 May, brought a historic moment for Malaysia, with three Malaysian public health leaders jointly honoured with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) prestigious World No Tobacco Day Award.
Presented to Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, Dr Noraryana Hassan of the Ministry of Health and Dr Murallitharan Munisamy of the Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control during last month’s 78th World Health Assembly, this accolade recognises their vital contributions to Malaysia’s decades-long WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) commitment.
The collective efforts of Malaysia’s tobacco control pioneers since the country’s 2005 FCTC ratification have culminated in the passage of its landmark Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Act 2024. Yet, as the honoured health experts have emphasised, beyond this “victory for all Malaysians” lies the long-term challenge of implementing and enforcing its new legislation – particularly given the country’s thriving illicit tobacco trade.
As Malaysia progresses its tobacco control journey, it should avoid the missteps of other global actors like the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom – whose failure to tackle incessant tobacco lobbying have led to defective public health policies – while drawing inspiration from Europe’s civil society-led efforts to align regulation with WHO requirements rather than Big Tobacco interests.
Malaysia’s tobacco-driven public health scourge
Reflecting on Malaysia’s WHO award, Dr Ahmad hailed a national “dedication to protect current and future generations from the harmful effects” of tobacco products – a crucial priority for a country in which tobacco remains one of the most pressing public health threats.
According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), roughly 4.8 million Malaysian adults are active smokers – nearly 19% of the adult population – with male smoking prevalence exceeding 36%. While Malaysia has achieved a modest drop since 2011, its persistently-high tobacco consumption remains responsible for an estimated 27,000 deaths every year from smoking-related illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and chronic respiratory conditions – all leading causes of premature death and long-term disability.
Malaysia’s burden of cancer is particularly sobering, with lung cancer the country’s top trigger of cancer-related death and smoking identified as the primary risk factor. Furthermore, NCDs now account for over 70% of all premature deaths in Malaysia according to the WHO, with Malaysia’s increasingly-prevalent cardiovascular disease alone claiming nearly 30,000 lives annually. Once again, tobacco use is the leading avoidable risk factor for these conditions, adding to its noxious impact as a key driver of health inequalities within low-income communities.
Illicit tobacco adding fuel to fire
These sobering statistics underscore the importance of consolidating the gains of Malaysia’s 2024 Tobacco Control and Smoking Product Regulation Act – a regulatory milestone rightfully celebrated as part of Malaysia’s participation at last month’s World Health Assembly. Through its interventions on the WHO’s Integrated Lung Health Resolution – adopted on the summit’s closing day – Malaysia helped spotlight the multi-faceted health threats posed by tobacco use.
In Malaysia, the illicit tobacco trade is among the major threats to its public health crusade. Released in March, the NielsenIQ Illicit Cigarettes Study (ICS) 2024 found that illicit products still account for roughly 55% of the Malaysian market, despite the recent years of progress achieved by robust national law enforcement.
Indeed, customs, police, and judicial enforcement are becoming increasingly important in a country where the illicit trade persists despite advanced technology. While seizures and fines may temporarily disrupt smuggling, the lack of convictions fails to sufficiently deter traffickers from continuing their illicit tobacco profiteering.
Moreover, Big Tobacco’s historic involvement in the illicit trade is well-documented in many studies – including from the University of Bath’s eminent Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) – significantly compounding Malaysian law enforcement’s challenges.
Europe’s cautionary tale
As Malaysia aims to strengthen tobacco control, safeguard public revenues and address the illicit trade concerns expressed by 70% of its citizens in a recent survey, upgrading its anti-smuggling policy is an urgent necessity. To ensure the resilience of its tobacco traceability technology, Kuala Lumpur must not ignore the lessons from Europe, where the EU has, since 2019, administered a system deeply tied to the tobacco industry – a major violation of the WHO FCTC and its Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, where no independence as well as no enforcement leads to no result.-
The roots of this health policy failure lie in 2014, when Big Tobacco lobbyists infiltrated the last legislative review of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), during which the proposed independent, WHO-compliant track-and-trace system to curb illicit trade was scrapped, opening the door for years of regulatory capture.
In February 2024, a coalition of MEPs and civil society leaders – notably including the Smoke Free Partnership, Framework Convention Alliance and TCRG – released a White Paper warning that the EU had failed to insulate its public health policymaking from tobacco lobbyists over the past decade. As its authors highlight, the long-stalled TPD revision, which could introduce a genuinely industry-independent tracking system, remains blocked by relentless pressure from an industry eager to protect its profits above public health.
Tobacco industry’s trojan horses
Big Tobacco’s opaque lobbying pressure has paid off. Today, the EU’s tobacco traceability system is run by a web of companies with deep industry ties, severely weakening Brussels’s illicit trade response – as evidenced by the bloc’s consistently-rising illicit trade and up to €20 billion in lost annual excise tax revenue since the system’s implementation.
Concerningly, the tobacco industry’s allies – Swiss firms Inexto and Dentsu Tracking, alongside French multinational Atos and its subsidiaries – control nearly half of the system’s core infrastructure, creating the possibility for Big Tobacco’s indirect, hidden control while affording the system a false image of independence. All roads lead back to Codentify – a tracking technology originally developed by Philip Morris International and widely criticised by experts such as former head of the WHO FCTC Convention Secretariat, Dr Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, who has decried the system for being “managed and controlled by the tobacco industry.”
Through respective acquisitions, both Inexto and Dentsu have inherited Codentify’s technology, along with a group of former PMI executives who built it, giving the industry undue influence over an EU mechanism meant to keep it in check. What’s more, Inexto’s significant financial ties to the tobacco industry – from which it draws the overwhelming majority of its revenue – further weaken the EU system’s compliance with WHO FCTC requirements. As the WHO has warned, the fox is in charge of the henhouse.
Furthermore, the tobacco industry disingenuously advocates for fully-digital traceability, neglecting to mention its true aim of undermining government oversight by preventing the installation of production line monitoring equipment and enforcement devices for police and customs officials.
Kuala Lumpur’s critical next steps
Looking ahead, Malaysia’s promising tobacco control efforts need not repeat the regulatory mistakes seen in Europe. Kuala Lumpur has a chance to set a global example where the EU has failed by implementing a robust, WHO-aligned tobacco traceability system rooted in industry-independence, transparency and digital innovation.
By rejecting systems shaped by tobacco interests, Malaysia can close enforcement loopholes, reduce smoking prevalence and reclaim lost tax income. As showcased by its WHO World No Tobacco Day Award, Malaysia’s foundation is already in place – what’s needed now is to confirm its political will with field actions, alongside continued partnership with civil society experts to inform effective public health policies free of harmful industry influence.
Press Release
Malay News
