KUALA LUMPUR – As Putrajaya pursues its controversial move to ban cigarettes for those born from 2007, a Bersatu leader has questioned Putrajaya if it will also ban flights, sugar and fatty food as it poses danger to health. 

Former information chief Wan Saiful Wan Jan said sugar poses significant health problems and flights carry inherent risks, even potentially leading to fatalities.

“So is the government going to take an easy way out to ban these products too. What next? Karaoke centres because there is a possibility of close proximity,” he said.

Wan Saiful said this during a discussion on the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Bill 2023, also known as the Generational Endgame (GEG) Bill, which is currently under review by the parliamentary select committee (PSC) on health

He said such short-sighted approach of blanket ban on cigarettes would not yield results as it would push youths underground, making matters worse as it will be hard to curb illicit markets.

“Issues like this should not be touched this way. There must be stakeholder engagement on how we could tackle this,” he said, adding that it was crucial to empower the public with knowledge.

He said as for secondary smokers issue, the government could empower people to stop people from smoking as inhaling secondary smoke was unhealthy.

“My fear is we are moving towards allowing the government to take over our choices of freedom,” he said.

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