You’re a fool if you think vape is not a big deal!

TO make the point interesting, the ‘hustle and bustle’ on the vape issue in Malaysia is heard beyond the country. At least for a Malaysian student that is studying abroad like me, seeing the way our government handles this issue, really makes me ‘amazed’.

We know that last August our Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan announced that the action of using vape is officially considered as haram. The same decision that they did when our country faced the cultural wave of smoking shisha.

Yet, recently the government stated that they will not illegalized the usage of vape, instead they will regulate the level of chemicals and nicotine in it. In fact, the ‘terrific’ statement from a minister that said – “the cabinet’s decision represents the ASPIRATION of Malaysian youth” has successfully increased the controversial sense in this issue.

For the first time in my life, I feel so grateful that I’m just 22 – it means that this is not the government that I voted for (at least I know what kind of government that I want to vote for because I am eligible to do that for the next General Election).

But frankly speaking as a youth, when I heard that statement, deep from my heart I just want to say –

“Thanks, but no thanks Mr Minister. We are aspired enough to see whether by putting the-strawberry-flavored-smoke-full-in-nicotine can makes our life better or not”.

But the point is – whether we want to see the vaping culture in our society as a small matter that we don’t have to worry about, or we want to take it as another symptom of deteriorating value in our society?

As a youth that is full with aspiration, I think that vaping culture is another cultural weapon that is used to instill useless addiction among the youth. The same concept for pornography, where the users will get some sort of pleasure of doing it, and to a certain point they will develop an addiction.

With that kind of addiction, the habit then demands the person to invest money, time and attention in order to fulfill the level of pleasure. At the end, we will get a society that is inefficient, not productive, and waste their money to fulfill their addiction, instead of using their time and talent to develop the nation.

In a simpler words, vaping culture is a cultural weapon to destroy a civilization!

If you think I am just making this up and exaggerating the vaping issue, let us see what historical facts tell us about the cultural weapon of using addictive substance or technology to destroy a nation.

For anyone that ever heard about the Opium War, you must know how the British used this strategy to defeat China, occupy their trade ports and colonialize one of their island (today it is known as Hong Kong).

The conflict began due to China’s protectionist trade policy that harmed the British. The British needed tea as the demand from Europe for the Chinese tea was tremendously high, but the Chinese only accepted silver from the British for the trade. This caused tension between the two nations, and British decided to offer China their overproduced opium from their colony, India. Yet, the Chinese refused the offer as they knew opium is not a good thing for them.

However, the British continued their effort to introduce opium to the Chinese society and they decided to do that illegally.

At the end, smoking opium had become an epidemic throughout the nation and most of the Chinese addicted to this substance regardless of their social or economic status. At this moment in history, the Chinese civilization was attacked by this cultural addictive weapon.

In fact, in March 1839 the Chinese government destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium (an estimation of 1,400 tons of the drug) that were warehoused at Canton by British merchants. This event then caused what is called as the Opium War that witnessed the defeat of China to British.

The consequence of the defeat was not a small thing to think about. As a matter of fact, China had to open up their trade ports to the Westerners and they ceded Hong Kong to be occupied by the British.

As the result of that, a huge number of Christian missionaries were allowed to immigrate to China without any regulations. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, a long-lasting tension was created due to that event.

The proof is still here today – where we can see the Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution in recent years shows the ultimate result from the British’s attack on China – that creates a political tension for the government to handle.

All of these events started with the introduction of opium to the Chinese society, and we could see how the nation is paying for the price until today.

So, if you think that vaping culture that happens in our society can be considered as a small matter, you should rethink about it.

If the government thinks by allowing this kind of culture is worth for the economy (they said Malaysia is the second country gains profit from the vape industry), believe me it is not worthy at all for the society.

It is not worthy at all when our civilization and morality are sacrificed for the sake of certain groups of interest. It is not worthy at all to dehumanize our society for the sake of money that we know it will not reach to the people’s pocket.

Indeed, as a government that was elected by the people, you should guide the society towards a more civilized and a better society.

If the government thinks that by following whatever demand from a small portion of the youths in this country (even though, obviously it brings harm to us) is a good thing to do, let us see what will happen to our society in the next decades.

For the final words from me – thank you to the current leaders of our country for giving us, the future generation a HUGE responsibility to fix the problem that you created or will create.

For an aspired youth like me, we know that we will “thank” you for this decision one day.

That is why an aspired youth like me will say “you are a fool if you think vape is not a big deal!”

Fun fact: Do you know the person that invent vape is a man from China. It looks like someone does not learn from his own history.

Hanis Noor,
An active writer who currently studying in the US
She can be reached at [email protected]

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of, and should not be attributed to, Isma or Ismaweb.