Tobacco Smoke and Children: The Legal Protection Under Malaysian Laws

Abstract

The well-being of children is a major concern that the public need to be aware of. Health and environment play crucial factors in contributing to children’s development. However, tobacco smoking is one of the ‘diseases’ that has been a concern to many especially secondhand smoke which is a threat not only to adults but also to children. There are almost 7 billion people who die from tobacco smoke while 1.2 billion non-smokers die due to secondhand-smoke (World Health Organization, 2022). The objective of this research is to examine and analyze the extent to which Malaysian law shields children from exposure to tobacco smoke. Thus, this article adopts a doctrinal research by referring to several legislations available in Malaysia as well as the international conventions and treaties to highlight the inductive analysis of this research.