Gopeng MP Dr Lee Boon Chye, a former deputy health minister, said local authorities need clearance from the ministry for approving vape shops. “And the health ministry would not support it,” he told FMT.

However, vape shops were operating openly across the country,

He said the shops were endangering lives as nicotine levels in vapes are not regulated. “Vapes are not even labelled correctly. When health officials send the vape liquid for a lab test, the labels and the contents of vape liquids differ,” he said.

Nicotine is a scheduled poison under the Poison Act but vaping “manufacturers” seem to have easy access to nicotine from China, he said.

Enforcement of vape shops comes under the domestic trade and consumer affairs ministry. FMT is trying to get comments from the ministry.

Deputy health minister Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali told FMT that the ministry had not approved any vape or electronic cigarettes containing nicotine.

A retired Customs officer told FMT that vape manufacturers are buying nicotine and other vape liquids from China without paying taxes.

Excise duty for non-nicotine vape liquids was introduced in the 2021 federal budget, which opened the floodgates for unregulated vape liquids.

The Customs department had previously said that the excise collection for vape liquids amounted to less than RM100,000 in the first quarter of 2021, much lower than the RM300 million excise duty revenue estimated by the Malaysian Vape Chamber of Commerce.

Economist Barjoyai Bardai of Universiti Tun Abdul Razak said the government needs to find ways to control the black market selling of illegal cigarettes and vapes.

“Cigarette companies are taxed heavily, causing black market products to be in demand,” he said, adding that international cigarette companies may one day just exit Malaysia to Indonesia to stop their battle against illegal cigarettes and high taxes.

The Malaysian Retail Electronic Cigarette Association had previously said there are about 1.12 million vapers in Malaysia.