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Berani dalam Benar: In the Spirit of Arafah – Reforming the irrational, illegal and irresponsible. Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, May 26, 2026
Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
“Irrational” is not a word that could be easily dismissed when used in various occasions. The casual dictionary meaning which includes, without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason; or, without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment; otherwise, not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical, makes it serious enough to do without. After all its synonyms, ridiculous, unreasonable, insensate, are link with something “irresponsible” that most do not want to be associated with! It is more applicable to non-humans (animals, and machines) as they are “not endowed with the faculty of reasons.” And as more and more humans are subject to the law of the jungle, deficits in faculty of reasons are creating an “irrational” world as well, not much different from that of animals, or machines! Just look around us today.
Closer to home, however, the High Court recently ruled that “the Government acted irrationally and without proper consultation when it removed nicotine vape liquids and gels from the Poisons List in 2023, dealing a setback to efforts that would have paved the way for taxing vape products.” Judge Datuk Aliza Sulaiman in allowing a judicial review application filed by civil society groups — Voice of Children (VoC), the Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC), and the Malaysian Green Lung Association — and granted the declarations sought by the applicants, said in her judgement: “the exemption was driven largely by economic considerations tied to the government’s plan to impose excise duties on nicotine-containing vape products.”(emphasis added)
“Despite recognising that electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) and vape liquids are dangerous to health, and that Malaysia is obliged to regulate and restrict their supply, sale, and use, the first respondent (the Government) proceeded to make the impugned order to give effect to the decision regarding taxation,” she added. In other words, the delisting of the products used in vape and e-cigarettes was primarily to allow the government to tax the products knowing full well that products are dangerous, and life-threatening. What can be more “irrational” than to prioritise these economically over life, especially involving the young and innocent who for the longest time was protected by Poisons List, not unlike cigarettes. That is, smoking conventional, flammable tobacco products remains “banned” as it were, so why the double standards! This is where the government appeared to be totally “irrational” in every sense of the word, beyond any form of reforms as wished!
Consequently, the 11th hour, tragic decision in March 2023 to unilaterally remove liquid nicotine from the Poisons List effectively meant that vape became unregulated and could legally be sold to children, in contrast to cigarettes ever since. Moreover, the court also found that the decision was made without adequate consultation with the Poisons Board, raising questions over the administrative process behind the exemption. Literally, millions of innocent children (let alone adults) are exposed to a potentially new form of addiction that the World Health Organisation has warned of, but in vain!
The minister in question then, before being axed from the Cabinet, seemed to stir an unexpected controversy when it was alleged the delisting decision was endorsed by the Cabinet, which the High Court in Kuala Lumpur ruled as not only irrational but also “illegal.” Worse off, in defence of the “irrational” and “illegal” decision, she made it a double whammy by citing the need “to pull the industry out of the black market” as the main reason. Coming from the medical perspective which upholds the principle “first, do no harm” (primum non nocere) as the ultimate guiding maxim, practitioners must be careful to consider the potential risk of any intervention (especially irrational political ones) to avoid impact that may worsen the state of affairs/patients. Namely, it is a moral code and a bioethical principle that is not to be trampled on and compromised with, no matter how economically lucrative the outcome is, black market included. The ultimate aim is to secure life, not market or political popularity in earning votes for those with vested interest. The court seems to understand this better (than the ministerial counterparts) in that its ruling marks a significant legal challenge to the government’s (irrational/illegal) approach towards regulating and taxing nicotine vape products, an issue that has drawn scrutiny from most public health groups and lay community alike, namely parents and educators. In this sense, the Cabinet has been misled by being equally dubious and irrational, thanks to the one person who made Malaysia the pariah in this issue, not just locally, but worldwide. Unfortunately, Malaysia is about the only country that has no qualm to “legalise” the said vape products so as to freely “poison” its own people under the fake banner and slogan of “civilising” them!
To assert that “the judicial review had largely become academic because the new law was already in force” is no doubt not only “irrational” and “illegal” just because arguably “a new law was already” in place to close the previous regulatory gap, but at once morally and ethically irresponsible. The reason is simple enough, since for more than a year after the March 2023 decision was bulldozed, a genocidal-like apparatus was intentionally put into action against the future generation, amounting to millions and still counting. They were the “new” sacrificial lambs in the name of the “black marketeers” to whom we owe apologies and compensations for what they naively subjected to. The socio-emotional agony and sufferings will go a long way since there are no other known actions that could restore their life back to pre-drug use. The impairments will last a lifetime, and can be premature. In the Spirit of Arafah, the call is to totally repent, followed by utmost urgent rework of the situation, as in the likes of the southern neighbour, for example, which banned vaping since 2018, and moved on to tightly control the “black market players” without being “irrational and illegal” like the Malaysia counterparts). On this score, the 60th anniversary of Singapore independence was made a platform where the Prime Minister specifically emphasised on this aspect in his new year address moving forward. Malaysia never broached the issue, and seems to be quite happy to sweep it under the carpet pretending that it not a scourge to worry about although the nation is gradually hollowed out by the rampant abuse of addictive drugs “facilitated” by the Government via the Cabinet that is deprived of reason, and mental as well as scientific clarity that dehumanises in an on-going war for more than five decades, long before vape was thrown in into the losing misadventure. Reports as late 20 May, last week, highlighted the availability of “"zombie vape" videos of young Malaysian men (not just children) appearing dazed and disoriented after vaping have intensified concern that drug-laced liquids are spreading through the country’s booming e-cigarette market.” The alleged clips, shared widely on social media over the past month, portrayed local men slumped on the ground or behaving erratically after allegedly inhaling piu-piu or piao-piao