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31st May marks World No Tobacco Day, which encompasses not just cigarettes but the broader tobacco and nicotine industry, including vapes and e-cigarettes. In Malaysia, smoking rates remain stubbornly high, cigarette taxes have been frozen for more than a decade now, and policymakers are still grappling with how to regulate newer nicotine products. How coherent is Malaysia’s tobacco control strategy? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Muhammad Daniel Kittu, Senior Researcher at the think tank, Social & Economic Research Initiative (SERI), where he specialises in health economics.
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00:10Hi, welcome back to Consider This, I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our discussion about whether
00:16Malaysia's tobacco control strategy is keeping pace with the realities of addiction and industry
00:23influence. Joining me on the show now to discuss this further is Mohamad Daniel Kitu who is a
00:29senior researcher at the think-tank social and economic research initiative or better known as
00:34SIRRI where he specializes in health economics. Daniel good to have you back on the show it's
00:40almost a year to the day that we last had you on and the last time we spoke you cited
00:47a lot of your
00:48research into Malaysia's tobacco taxes in which you argued that really our tobacco taxes have failed
00:55to keep pace with inflation and income growth maybe to begin our conversation you can start there
01:00and talk to me about any updates that you may have had on your research right thank you Melissa so
01:07from last year we were advocating for a five ringgit per pack increase in tobacco taxes so that was
01:14essentially to bring the affordability levels of cigarettes back to at least 2016. So based on that
01:20we also conducted a public survey so to to kind of gauge what was the public's opinion on increasing
01:27tobacco taxes and what was quite interesting is actually most people are supportive of that tobacco
01:32tax increase um about 70 percent were supportive of like a five ringgit per pack increase which was
01:39quite interesting to see even among smokers a majority of them like over around 50 50 plus percent
01:46were supportive of it um so yeah so it's quite interesting to see that result okay because then
01:53so that was before budget 2026 uh then in budget 2026 we saw a two cent per stick increase or
02:00that's
02:01equivalent to a 40 cent per pack increase which isn't much is much lower than what we were hoping for
02:07uh but it was at least informative for us on how we can re-strategize and try to at least
02:12push for a
02:13policy change in this area um so as a result we actually conducted another survey this year uh
02:18following the the recent tobacco tax increase um and we did find that most people were actually
02:24supportive of that last tax increase and actually about so about 86 percent were supported with it and
02:29but half of them thought it should be be even higher and even among smokers like most of them actually
02:35supported the tax increase so at least in that sense it's encouraging that
02:41that this tax increase wasn't something that was viewed negatively by the public even among smokers
02:47okay so yeah so that's why um part of our strategy now is trying to look at things more long
02:53term
02:54and trying to make sure that this tax increase doesn't become a one-off and making sure that we
02:58do see like at least a minimum annual increase of at least five percent and the reason it's five percent
03:04is because that's taking into account of inflation and gdp growth which we use as a proxy for um income
03:11income growth essentially so like that's so inflation is like between one and two percent and ddp growth is
03:18like between four and five percent so like we took the lower end of it to just illustrate that this
03:23should be the bare minimum of what we should be expecting in terms of an annual increase every year
03:29okay i want to come back to what was announced in budget um 2026 but let's focus on the what
03:37your
03:37research revealed about public support did it surprise you that smokers were quite supportive of higher
03:46tobacco taxes actually talk to me about what you found and whether or not malaysians understand the link
03:53between cigarette affordability and smoking prevalence so it's not completely surprising
04:00because it's fairly well known that globally like most smokers actually are supportive of these types
04:05of taxes so one of the reasons for that so because in our second survey we did ask what was
04:11um the
04:13intention for smokers in terms of you know their habits and actually the vast majority of them wanted
04:18to at least reduce smoking or even try to quit so they are aware that this habit isn't good and
04:24they
04:24are supportive of different measures to essentially help them to encourage them to quit so higher cigarette
04:31prices are one of those methods um and in terms of how malaysians view affordability and smoking
04:39prevalence i would say consciously people probably don't really think that much about it i think quite
04:46often people make the assumption that because cigarettes are addictive that you know higher
04:51prices may not have any impact on on cigarette consumption but what we do know from evidence in
04:58malaysia and worldwide uh it does have an impact on reducing cigarette consumption so that's why like in
05:05economics we say that cigarettes are priced inelastic so that means that any price increase outweighs
05:11uh any cigarette consumption so even though the cigarette consumption is relatively smaller to the
05:16price increase like overall revenue do increase and you do get a reduction in cigarette consumption
05:21because if there was no impact on cigarette consumption it would be what we call um call it to be
05:27perfectly inelastic which isn't the case for cigarettes okay all right so that comes that brings me to
05:35uh the minor slight increase that was announced in the previous budget um talk to me a little bit about
05:43that what what message uh from a policy perspective what message do you think that slight increase sent um
05:53um what was your read on it daniel yeah so this actually reminds me of the budget speech when the
05:59prime minister he was as he was
06:01announcing um the higher cigarette tax increase i think he just said like towards and surgery or something
06:08along those lines so like it seems that um you know from his or at least like it seems like
06:14they're
06:14they're viewing this as a way to increase revenues like you know modestly but also not to
06:21have it as a burden for people who are you know consuming cigarettes um but that's also um
06:28um and it brings to another finding from our survey as well so one of the things that there was
06:33a concern
06:34around higher cigarette prices through taxation was affecting the cost of living uh yeah so we did
06:40ask respondents what they thought about whether tobacco taxes contributed contributed to um
06:46cost of living pressures and it's not a surprise most respondents say no it wasn't a big factor because
06:52most people are not smokers but even among smokers only a minority actually said it was a big factor
06:59like 20 to 30 percent only said it was a big factor in exacerbating cost of living pressures so even
07:06then
07:07um these higher cigarette prices are not likely going to be something that's detrimental to to the
07:14government in the sense that people are going to be unhappy in terms of how it impacts cost of living
07:18pressures and anyways the revenues from tobacco taxes could potentially be used you know to help fund
07:24programs to actually help people who are struggling with cost of living pressures right can i widen the
07:30conversation a little bit daniel to include um vape because now now is the age of vape we have seen
07:37data that shows that smoking um traditional cigarettes have has declined particularly in the younger
07:44generation but we're also hearing um anecdotal evidence particularly from public health advocates and
07:50and uh doctors that they're seeing a higher prevalence of vaping uh in the younger generation
07:56when we look at malaysia's tobacco and nicotine control strategy has has vaping complicated malaysia's
08:06efforts to um to to create policy and regulation coherently for for this for tobacco and nicotine
08:14control yeah vape is definitely a threat in terms of um all the gains that we've made in tobacco
08:22control measures it threatens to reverse a lot of those gains um not only because vape itself is harmful
08:28but it can also be a gateway for younger people to also smoke conventional cigarettes because quite often
08:35even many vape users are dual users so uh in that sense it's it undermines um a lot of tobacco
08:42control
08:43measures that we've been implementing so that's why it's important for us to be tackling these products
08:47concurrently so like right now um especially with the recent uh court ruling on the exemption for
08:55nicotine vapes it's looking like a ban for vapes is like the most straightforward thing to do
09:00um i'm not a legal expert so i can't tell you the specifics about the legalities of it but i
09:07think
09:07as an economist efficiency is something i'm very much interested in really the most efficient thing
09:12to do would be to actually just follow through with the government has intended to ban vapes and
09:17they should just go through with that and even many of our neighbors in asean have already banned
09:21vapes i think malaysia is just one of three countries in asean that hasn't banned vapes and the other
09:26two are indonesia and philippines and they're planning to ban vapes as well so we might as well
09:31would be doing it right now the circumstances seem to be perfect for that and at the same time i
09:35can
09:36understand there's a concern about revenue collection especially like the prospect of possibly
09:43returning those tax revenues so with that i would suggest that it's important to ban vapes and at the
09:49same time raise tobacco taxes in order to use that revenue to help fund programs to help people
09:55struggling with tobacco and nicotine addiction okay well now i have to ask you what you would like
10:01uh policy makers to prioritize what would you like to see happen next daniel so the next time
10:06we have world uh no tobacco day we have some progress to report on this front so i have to
10:14say
10:14it's two things that vapes should be banned by then and at the same time we should have um like
10:20a
10:21mandated minimum annual increase of five at least five percent of two for tobacco taxes because i'm
10:28also conscious of the fact that we are approaching an election season so i don't want i would hate to
10:34see history repeat itself and see another 10 years of no tobacco tax increase so i would hope to see
10:40that
10:41at least with that mandated um minimum five percent increase we regardless of who's in power we do at
10:49we see some progress in increasing tobacco taxes and you know um leading to um lower cigarette consumption
10:55right daniel thank you so much for being on the show with me today muhammad daniel kitu from
11:00suri the thick tank social and economic research initiative wrapping up this episode of consider this
11:06i'm melissa idris signing off for the evening thank you so much for watching and good night
11:10and good night
11:17you
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