Smokers migrating to vapes, contraband cigarettes – CAPS

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KOTA KINABALU: The Consumer Affairs and Protection Society of Sabah (CAPS) has commended the government’s recent decision to increase the prices of all cigarettes as an effort to discourage smokers.

However, its head of Business Good Practice Bureau, Donny Yapp, questioned whether it will solve the smoking problem or will it raise other related problems,

Yapp pointed out that the immediate effect of this extreme price hike on cigarettes, where most now cost RM17 per pack, is that smokers are migrating to vapes and contraband cigarettes.

“Now vapes is a new thing but contraband cigarretes are not. It is here the authorities have failed miserably and I think there is something very wrong with the enforcement agencies as far as Sabah is concerned,” he said in a statement yesterday.

According to Yapp, the recent sharp hike in cigarretes prices has illegal and foreigner traders smiling because of the rising number of smokers seeking contraband cigarettes from them. The government doesn’t generate tax from these contraband goods.

“We in CAPS kept on recieving reports on contraband goods and we kept on forwarding complaints and reports to the Health Department, Customs and the police but nothing conclusive seems to appear.

“For instance, in the Kepayan Ridge area, more and more parents are worried and reported to us that school-going children can easily get supply of contraband cigarettes from a few sundry shops in the area.

“Yes there were raids by the authorities on these shops as we forwarded people’s complaints, but it doesnt solve the problem,” he claimed.