World No Tobacco Day 2025: Unmasking the Appeal, Exposing Industry Tactics on Smoking Products

Lai Cheng May 31, 2025 0 Comments

Consumers must be made aware of the ‘Legacy Documents’, a vast archive of internal records from major tobacco companies made public following US litigation in the 1990s. The over 14 million files (more than 80 million pages) reveal how the industry manipulated science, marketing, and public policy to protect its profits. The documents are housed in the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL) at the University of California, San Francisco.

In 1999, Clive Bates and Andy Rowell published a highly readable Tobacco Explained, summarising thousands of these documents and exposing what they called “the most systematic corporate deceit of all time”.

The analysis shows the industry disinformed the public, lobbied governments, greenwashed its image through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and routinely threatened legal action to block tobacco control measures — tactics that continue today.

In line with World No Tobacco Day 2025, the Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) urges the Malaysian government to impose a total ban on all smoking products. Partial bans have repeatedly failed and are easily circumvented by the industry.

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), adopted in 2003, was the first global treaty to address tobacco use. Although it did not initially cover e-cigarettes (which emerged the same year), several FCTC articles can still be applied to Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) of which vapes are included in the category:

  • Article 1(d) – Definition of “tobacco products”
  • Article 8 – Protection from second-hand smoke
  • Article 11 – Packaging and labelling
  • Article 13 – Advertising and promotion ban

In 2013, British American Tobacco began producing ENDS (marketed as Next Generation Products), and Philip Morris introduced Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs). These were heavily marketed to counter FCTC goals and rebrand smoking as acceptable.

ENDS are promoted as cleaner, trendier, and less harmful than cigarettes. Their appeal to youth is amplified by flavoured e-liquids, sleek designs, and reduced detectability. However, both ENDS and HTPs serve the same function: nicotine delivery and addiction maintenance.

Philip Morris CEO Jacek Olczak has claimed that users should switch to these “less harmful” products and “cigarettes belong in museums”. Yet, such statements are misleading. In 2015, Public Health England estimated ENDS to be “95% less harmful” than cigarettes—an often-cited claim that has since been debunked. A 2020 American Journal of Public Health article by six public health experts found the figure to be outdated, misleading, and invalid.

By 2021, evidence had emerged linking ENDS to EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury), a serious and sometimes fatal condition. Smoking-related diseases often take decades to manifest, complicating the public’s understanding of long-term harm.

The industry has also failed to address the abuse of its products for illicit drug delivery. Substances including THC, fentanyl, methamphetamine, and synthetic hallucinogens have been detected in vape liquids. In Malaysia, ganja-laced vape products have been sold since 2015, and in 2023, “Magic Mushroom” vapes were found to contain synthetic drug cocktails.

It was recently reported that traces of fentanyl have been detected in the sewage system, and the government should be deeply concerned, as this drug is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and can be used to adulterate vape liquids. Fentanyl is often referred to as the ‘zombie drug’— with good reason, as evident in numerous disturbing video clips of users available on YouTube.

We call on the Malaysian government to implement a comprehensive ban on all smoking and vaping products. These items are a growing public health burden and pose a serious risk of fuelling drug addiction. Worryingly, they remain easily accessible online — often requiring nothing more than clicking a button to falsely confirm the buyer is over 18.

It is wiser to ban all smoking and vaping products before users become long-term nicotine addicts or, worse, progress to using other drugs.

 

 

Mohideen Abdul Kader
President
Consumers’ Association of Penang

 Press Statement, 31 May 2025