KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS) has expressed its support for the Tobacco and Smoking Products Control Bill 2022 to prohibit smoking among the younger generation born on and after January 1, 2007 in building a healthier Keluarga Malaysia (Malaysian Family).

Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Ti Lian Ker said his ministry had allocated RM100,000 for organising activities to foster and raise awareness of the dangers of smoking.

"It is the responsibility of KBS not only to mould youth to become leaders but also to nurture them to have discipline and awareness that smoking burdens themselves and the country, in terms of diseases and so on.

"KBS in spirit and in depth supports that an act be enacted to more strictly manage tobacco products," he told reporters at the Generational Endgame Anti-Smoking (GEGAR) Run event here today.

On July 27, the bill, known as the generational endgame to smoking, was tabled for the first reading in the Dewan Rakyat. Among others its highlights the ban on smoking any tobacco products or tobacco substitutes as well as the ban on the use of smoking devices, by any individual born on and after January 1, 2007.

-- BERNAMA