http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/03/11/time-for-a-tobacco-act-says-mctc/
Council chief Cheah says Putrajaya must have the political will to control tobacco use.
PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC) has alleged that the government lacks the political will to control tobacco use to ensure that young Malaysians don’t develop the smoking habit.
Speaking to FMT, MTMC President Molly Cheah said she hoped Putrajaya would use the time allocated under the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) to finally come up with a Tobacco Act.
Countries committed to signing the TPPA are given two years to amend existing laws or enact new ones before the agreement comes into effect.
“Malaysia is backward compared to other countries who are signing on to the TPPA,” she said. “It still doesn’t have a proper act in place to control the use of tobacco.”
Instead, she said, the government seemed content to control tobacco use through what she called an “archaic” provision of the Food Act 1983.
However, Cheah commended the Ministry of Health for planning to implement a rule requiring plain packaging of tobacco products, saying the measure had shown positive results in other countries.
“We are fully supporting the move and hope that the government will implement plain packaging as soon as possible as it’s shown to be a very effective means to control the use of tobacco.”
She dismissed the notion that the move would have repercussions on intellectual property rights, noting that Australia, one of the TPP partners, was already successful in implementing it.