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Malaysia has not passed a national ban on vape, and no ban bill has been published or tabled. Act 852 still regulates sale. The May 2026 Poisons List ruling has left the retail sale of nicotine e-liquid unsettled, and seven states restrict sales through business licensing. Position as at 23 October 2026.

Nicotine vape is still sold because two laws now point different ways, and the Ministry of Health has not said which reading it will apply. The High Court declared the 2023 Poisons List exemption irrational, the Government withdrew its appeal citing Act 852, and Customs was still collecting excise as at 11 September. As at 23 October 2026 the retail position is unresolved.

Act 852 has been the main federal law on tobacco and vape products since 1 October 2024. It regulates registration, sale, labelling, advertising and no-smoking places, and it has prohibited online sale since that date. It does not ban vape or contain the generational end game. Nicotine pouches that contain no tobacco fall under the Poisons Act instead, on the Ministry of Health's classification. Position as at 23 October 2026.

From 1 October 2026, a cartridge or disposable pod may hold no more than 2 ml of liquid, under regulation 9(4) of P.U.(A) 261/2024. This article lists each date that changed the rules, from the 2021 excise to Act 852 and its regulations, with the instrument behind each one. As at 23 October 2026, no national ban has a commencement date in law.

Seven of Malaysia's 13 states no longer license vape for sale, while federal law under Act 852 still permits regulated sale, subject to the May 2026 Poisons List ruling. Terengganu has barred sale at business premises since 1 August 2025. Selangor is considering a ban and Sarawak has drafted a law, and neither is in force as at 23 October 2026.

The "95 per cent less harmful" figure is an expert panel's 2013 rating, published in 2014 and adopted by Public Health England in 2015. It was never a measurement and it is contested. The most recent UK reviews (OHID 2022, RCP 2024) say "a small fraction of the risk" without a number. We have found no statement withdrawing the figure.

Cochrane's living review, updated on 26 August 2026, reports high-certainty evidence that nicotine e-cigarettes help more adults who smoke stop for at least six months than nicotine replacement therapy. It covers adults who already smoke and regulated products only. No trial was run in Malaysia, and the safety evidence is short term.

Act 852 registers products, not shops, and the right to trade comes from the local authority licence. This checklist sets out what the Act and its regulations require of a retailer, from registered and correctly labelled stock to the display ban, age, signage and penalties, as at 23 October 2026. It is published guidance, not legal advice.

Malaysia already has an illegal vape market, including drug-laced product recorded in police seizures from 2023 to May 2026. Records from Australia, Singapore, South Africa, India and Bhutan show supply moving into illegal channels under restriction, and also some effects in the other direction. None of it predicts a Malaysian outcome, and we say what each case does not establish.

MOVE keeps the case against it on its own site: eight criticisms, from SEATCA's front-group listing to the critique of the 95% figure, each linked to the original and answered. The page also says where MOVE agrees with its critics. On funding, MOVE states there that it is an independent, non-profit organisation and does not represent any commercial interest.

MOVE is an independent, non-profit movement of Malaysian adults who vape. It was launched in Shah Alam on 26 September 2015 and has argued for regulation rather than a ban ever since. This is the short, dated record of what we have done, with sources, and a plain account of where that record is thin.

The generational end game would have barred anyone born on or after 1 January 2007 from buying tobacco and vape products. It was removed from the bill that became Act 852 after the Attorney General said it could be challenged under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution. As at 23 October 2026, no bill to revive it has been tabled, and the Ministry of Health said in August 2025 that it is "not being implemented for now".