PETALING JAYA: The market is full of devices that come with a multitude of functions.
For instance, a wristwatch can measure your heart rate or serve as a communication device apart from telling the time.
However, they now can also serve as vapes or e-cigarettes, raising concerns among parents and teachers.
Watches, radios and MP3 players that also double up as e-cigarettes and vapes can be purchased online from RM30 to RM350 each.
This will enable children to purchase and use the devices without their parents or teachers knowing.
The watch-vape device made its debut on July 19 when a 30-second video featuring a boy using the device went viral, raising mixed responses from netizens.
While some expressed concern, a few discounted the possibility that it would encourage anyone from picking up the smoking habit.
However, the Education Ministry is not taking any chances.
In a statement it said it would work together with the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry to address the problem of such devices being sold to schoolchildren.
“The Education Ministry takes the issue very seriously.”
It said its investigations showed that such items were being sold outside school compounds.
“We will work with the Domestic Trade Ministry to curb the sale of prohibited substances, especially to schoolchildren,” it added.
Secretary-general of the Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control, Muhammad Shaani Abdullah, said the Poisons Act 1952 should be strictly enforced given that there were no regulations on vapes and e-cigarettes.
He told theSun that most ingredients used in e-cigarettes contained nicotine and only a doctor, pharmacist or veterinarian was authorised to prescribe them.
He pointed out that those selling vapes were doing so illegally.
“Why is the government not taking action?” he said.
The Health Ministry announced on June 27 that it had set up a special committee to formulate ways of controlling the use of e-cigarettes.
Its minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said the panel would examine the contents of e-cigarette material in accordance with provisions under the Poisons Act to determine if they had a negative health impact.
He said recently that the committee, chaired by his deputy Dr Lee Boon Chye, met on July 16 and July 22 to draw up details on how regulations governing the use and sale of vape ingredients containing nicotine could be enforced.
