THE Government’s ambitious plan to ban the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products to those born after 2005 will not work as illegal cigarette syndicates will find creative ways to circumvent the law to peddle contraband cigarettes to the new market segment.
While the intention behind the tobacco generation endgame is noble, criminals in the illegal cigarette trade will undoubtedly see this policy as another lucrative gateway to tap a sizeable segment of the society who is prevented from purchasing legal cigarettes, according to the Retail and Trade Brands Advocacy Malaysia Chapter (RTBA Malaysia).
“These criminals do not conform to any laws or regulations. If the generation endgame is to come into effect, they will quickly find ways to entice the ‘banned generation’ through clever promotions as well as making cheap illegal cigarettes easily accessible to them,” warned RTBA’s managing director Datuk Fazli Nordin.
“In addition to finding novel ways to get illegal cigarettes into the hands of the banned generation, we expect illegal cigarette operators to also encourage smoking through the use of social media.”
In this regard, Fazli said there are already instances where brands of contraband cigarettes are spearheading direct and indirect forms of advertising through the internet.
Experts at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade (TF-CIT) have recently highlighted that criminals were able to quickly move their activities to the online trading and digital marketing space to sell their illegal products during the lockdowns.
There were several instances where perpetrators also reached out to new and current consumers through social media networks to expand their nefarious sales activities.
In view of poor enforcement of existing laws and regulations, Malaysia’s illegal cigarette trade has taken up close to 60% of total cigarettes sold in the market today with the Government incurring RM5 bil annual losses in uncollected tax revenue.
“It is doubtful that banning cigarette sales to a new generation will cause overall demand for cigarettes to decline, eventually disincentivising illegal cigarette perpetrators. This is indeed wishful thinking,” he pointed out.
In practice and based on historical data, Fazli expects criminal intervention to cause the illegal cigarette trade and the national smoking prevalence to increase exponentially in the event a prohibition type law like the Generation Endgame were put in place.
RTBA Malaysia further highlighted that illegal cigarette syndicates were quick to change their modus operandi from smuggling contraband products through the ports to the use of porous coastal areas when the Government implemented restrictions on transshipment in 2021.
As such, Fazli recommended the Government to look beyond prohibition-type measures which have been proven to be ineffective and find alternative evidence-based solutions to reduce smoking prevalence in the country.
“There are countries that have implemented comprehensive and practical solutions that have yielded promising results,” he revealed.
“These include eradicating the illegal cigarettes trade, enforcing existing laws and regulations in relation to cigarettes sales to the underage and enhancing education programmes on the dangers of smoking.” – May 12, 2022
