In Malaysia, the Minister of Health is being sued by health and child protection activists

Malaysian Health Minister Dr. Zaliha Mustafa is being sued by several NGOs for attempting to exempt nicotine e-liquids from the Poisons Act 1952.

The legal action filed on June 30, 2023, by the Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC, an umbrella group of 40 health organizations), the Malaysian Green Lung Association (MGLA), and the children's advocacy group Voice of the Children (VoC) against Dr. Zaliha Mustafa, Malaysian Minister of Health, is a historic first that has several motives[1].

The minister allegedly exceeded her powers and compromised the anti-smoking policy

The main motive is to have attempted to deregulate nicotine e-liquids for electronic cigarettes by removing them from the list of substances classified as poisons by the Poisons Act 1952. This declassification would have resulted in no legal limit being set for the nicotine levels of these e-liquids, as the legislation on the subject is quite weak. Health and children's rights activists believe that the minister exceeded her powers by declassifying e-liquids; they are suing her for abuse of power by issuing this unconstitutional order and for failing in her duty to protect public health.[2]Malaysia and the Malaysian government are also being sued in this proceeding, the first of its kind brought by anti-tobacco activists in that country.

They also consider that with this decision, the minister would contravene the Malaysian project of a tobacco-free generation in 2025. On this date, the sale of any tobacco or nicotine product – including electronic cigarettes and their e-liquids – will be prohibited to people born on or after 1^er January 2007. Creating an exception for e-liquids today would mean opening a loophole and compromising an anti-smoking policy initiated by his own ministry and his predecessor, Khairy Jamaluddin. This concern seems more legitimate than the Control of Tobacco Products and Smoking Bill, which was supposed to carry this policy to achieve a tobacco-free generation, has still not been adopted at second reading by Parliament.

The plaintiffs finally regret that the Minister's decision is in contradiction with Malaysia's commitments to two international treaties that it has ratified, namely the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), as well as the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). A decision of the 2014 Conference of the Parties (COP6) of the FCTC had notably called for the regulation of e-cigarettes in countries that have not already banned them, pending more definitive scientific conclusions on their impact on human health.[3].

Like the delay in the passage of the Control of Tobacco Products and Smoking Bill, this episode seems to indicate that members of the Malaysian government are subject to strong pressuresFormer Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said he himself had been pressured by the Economy Minister to declassify nicotine from the list of poisons, with the stated aim of pocketing taxes on vaping products."There was pressure to declassify, but I stood my ground," he thus declared[4].

Nicotine is indeed a poison

In Europe, controversies sometimes arise between supporters and detractors of e-cigarettes regarding the status of nicotine. The former frequently emphasize that it is a natural substance present in many food plants, while the latter emphasize that it is a toxic substance, and therefore a poison. The fact is that nicotine is primarily a natural insecticide, hence its presence in low levels in many plants. It is particularly concentrated in the tobacco plant, whose scientific name is Nicotiana tabacum

This concentration of insecticide makes nicotine a poison, even when it is of natural origin. It is classified as a poisonous substance in the French Public Health Code, and in Europe as "toxic if swallowed", "fatal by skin contact" and "toxic to aquatic organisms" by the Classification of Chemical Substances and Mixtures (CLP regulation).

Keywords: Malaysia, Zaliha Mustafa, MCTC, nicotine, poison, natural insecticide.

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[1] Su-Lyn B, In Historic Lawsuit, Health Minister Sued For Delisting Liquid Nicotine, CodeBlue, published July 3, 2023, accessed July 4, 2023.

[2] Health minister sued by child rights, anti-tobacco groups for delisting liquid nicotine, Malaysia Now, published July 3, 2023, accessed July 4, 2023.

[3] WHO, Electronic nicotine delivery systems, Provisional agenda item 4.4.2, COP to the WHO FCTC, 6th session, 1^er September 2014, 13 p.

[4] Yusof TA, Khairy claims he was pressured to delist nicotine from Poisons Act, The Star, published July 4, 2023, accessed July 5, 2023.