The Penang Consumers Association (CAP) revealed Malaysian smokers have smoked through 11,588.7 million sticks last year. That means that collectively, Malaysian smokers have smoked about 579.4 million packs of cigarettes, which is equivalent to literally burning RM9.9 billion.
“If each pack costs RM17, the total value of consumption would be RM9.9 billion which means Malaysians burned away an equivalent of 34 per cent of the healthcare allocation of RM29 billion in the 2019 Budget,” CAP president SM Mohd Idris was quoted as saying.
Assuming that most smokers subscribe to the a-pack-a-day habit, they would have spent about RM 510 every month.
“With this amount of money spent on smoking, the smoker can buy a whole chicken to cook every day for a month,” he said.
“There are more than one million smokers who are under the age of 10 years in Malaysia and most of the 4.7 million smokers in the country started smoking before the age of 18,” .
“More than 80 per cent of Malaysians who do not smoke have a right to not be exposed to tobacco smoke,” he added, in support of the government’s ban on smoking in public places starting 2019.
“All forms of smoking and vaping should be banned in eateries and eateries should not be allowed to sell cigarettes because it contains nicotine which is a Class C poison,” he noted.
Aside from that, the CAP president also said that heavy smoking increases the risk of diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, erectile dysfunction and more. By 2025, it would cost the government RM7.4 billion to treat these smoking-related diseases.
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