MOVE is the Malaysian Organization of Vape Entity, or Pertubuhan Entiti Vape Malaysia. It is an independent, non-profit movement of Malaysian adults who vape, launched on 26 September 2015 in Shah Alam. MOVE was founded by Samsul Kamal Ariffin, who is still its president. Our position is that vape should be regulated, not banned. We do not sell any products. If you are asking who MOVE Malaysia is, this is the short answer.
MOVE grew out of a Facebook group for Malaysian vapers, right2vape, which is still our largest channel. More than 55,000 people are part of the MOVE community, which is our own figure as at September 2026, and a small core of unpaid volunteers does the work. What follows is the condensed record of our first eleven years. Every entry carries a date, and the full timeline is on Our work. If you are a journalist checking who we are, our media page is the place to start.
The position described here is as at 23 October 2026.
How it started, in 2015
MOVE was launched on 26 September 2015 at a ceremony at RUANG, Shah Alam, under the banner “Stand for something, better than nothing”. In conjunction with the launch, the founding volunteers presented the movement’s first position paper, a Malay-language statement on electronic cigarettes and why the industry needed government regulation. The event was officiated by Khairul Azwan Harun, then Naib Ketua Pemuda UMNO Malaysia. The date comes from the event backdrop in our archive photographs.
Three days later, on 29 September 2015, Tobacco Reporter, citing a Bernama report, said a MOVE petition urging the Government to regulate vape had attracted 50,000 signatures and had been handed to the Umno Youth vice-chief (archived copy). The report does not say when or where the handover took place. In a Mingguan Malaysia feature that its text dates to between November 2015 and early 2016, our founder also said MOVE had recently handed a petition of about 50,000 signatures to Pemuda UMNO. We hold no copy of that petition today.
On 30 September 2015, MOVE and factasia.org co-presented a seminar in Kuala Lumpur titled “Moving With The Facts On Vaping”. The entry is dated from the screen in our archive photograph.
On 28 October 2015, the Health Minister said the ministry’s long-term plan was to ban vaping. On 30 October 2015, the Cabinet decided not to ban it (Malay Mail, 28 and 30 October 2015). The record does not show what part, if any, our petition played in that decision, and we do not claim one.
On 7 November 2015, The Star reported MOVE’s response to the first raids on vape shops. Our founder asked for regulation: “If it is about nicotine, they should come up with regulations and share with us. Once the regulation is out, we want to adhere and follow.” On tax, he said “we want it to be taxed in a way that is not burdening the consumers”. The article is paywalled, and an archived copy preserves the full text.
On 13 November 2015, seven weeks after the launch, our founder was a guest on RTM’s programme “Landskap” for a national television debate on vape. The other guests were the president of the Malaysian Medical Association and an activist from Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia. The broadcast is on the Berita RTM YouTube channel.
Taking the consumer case to the region
On 8 and 9 November 2017, a MOVE representative, Azrul Hafriz Zainudin, sat on the consumer panel at the first Asia Harm Reduction Forum in Jakarta. SEATCA’s Tobacco Industry Monitor, a source that opposes us, records his session as “The Search for Less Harmful Alternatives: Consumers’ Perspective”.
In September 2018, MOVE joined vapers’ groups from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia to launch #VapersBeHeard. The partner groups were The Vapers Philippines, ENDS Cigarette Smoke Thailand (ECST) and an Indonesian vapers’ association. According to People’s Journal (17 September 2018), Azrul Hafriz Zainudin made the announcement for MOVE during a panel discussion hosted by the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS).
The generational end game year
On 30 June 2022, our founder joined the Astro AWANI panel “Dialog Tiga Penjuru” for the episode “Generasi Penamat Rokok”, with Dr Wong Chee Kuan of Universiti Malaya Medical Centre and Prof Madya Dr Norashidah Mohamed Nor of Universiti Putra Malaysia. It went out live on channel 501 at 8.30pm.
In October 2022, MOVE filed a memorandum of objection to the Generational End Game bill at Parliament. Our founder’s post in our Facebook archive dates it to the morning of 5 October 2022. The generational end game was later dropped, and our Act 852 page sets out where the law went from there. We do not claim that the memorandum decided that outcome.
The 2025 petition, and asking for clarity in 2026
From August to November 2025, we campaigned for the petition “Kekalkan Vape Secara Sah di Malaysia: Kawal Selia, Bukan Haramkan” (“Keep Vape Legal in Malaysia: Regulate, Don’t Ban”). The petition page has since been taken down. An archived copy shows 101,616 signatures as at 11 November 2025. That is the count on that date, not a final count. We sought to present it, with a memorandum, to the Deputy Prime Minister’s office; the handover did not take place. Our What we stand for page sets out the position behind it.
On 18 August 2026, the Government withdrew its appeal in the Poisons List case. On 7 September 2026, our founder asked the Government and the Ministry of Health to clarify how the Poisons Act 1952 and Act 852 operate together, and asked for nicotine vape to be strictly regulated under Act 852 rather than prohibited (Free Malaysia Today, 7 September 2026). The legal position can change, so we keep it in one place: our policy tracker carries the dated status, and this article sets out where the law stands after the ruling.
What we are working on now
MOVE has commissioned an independent study, Malaysia’s Vape Ban: At the crossroads of public health and the black market, covering public health, product regulation and the illicit market. We aim to publish this in Q4 of 2026. It has not been published yet. Our research page lists what we have published so far.
We also publish plain-language guidance on this website. We explain Act 852 to adults who vape, to worried parents and to retailers, including the penalties. The consumer guide and the compliance page are where that guidance lives.
Where the record is thin
Entries on Our work without an external link are dated from MOVE’s own archive of 979 Facebook posts, 2015 to 2026. That is our own record, not independent evidence. We hold no copy of the 2015 petition, and the 2025 petition page is gone, so the archived copy is the evidence for its count. The figure of more than 55,000 is the size of our community as we report it, not a membership register.
Part of the outside record of our early years comes from that same SEATCA monitor. It records MOVE as established in 2015, and it lists MOVE among front groups. We publish that criticism, with our response, on The case against us, and this article explains why we keep our critics on our own site.
On funding, MOVE’s position is stated on The case against us: it does not represent any commercial interest. No fuller funding statement has been published.
The full record, entry by entry, is on Our work. If you would like to be part of it, you can join the movement on Get involved.