E-cigarettes Are At A Crossroads in Southeast Asia: Has The Golden Age Come To An End?

On September 1st, Singapore officially classified the etomidate e-cigarette as a drug. Since then, a storm has been brewing in the e-cigarette industry across Southeast Asia. According to Singapore's Health Minister Wang Yikang's announcement on August 28th, about one-third of the e-cigarettes seized recently contained this component. This drug, originally used for medical anesthesia, is being illegally added to e-cigarettes known as "Kpods", spreading rapidly among young people. Under the new policy, first-time offenders face a maximum fine of 10,000 Singapore dollars (approximately 53,000 RMB) or up to 6 months in prison; sellers face a minimum of 3 to 20 years in prison and up to 5 to 15 lashes. On August 31st, Singapore's law enforcement agencies seized over 6 million Singapore dollars (approximately 31.8 million RMB) worth of e-cigarette products in a large-scale operation and arrested 195 people.
Among them, 6 people will be prosecuted under the Drug Act rather than the Poisons Act, meaning they will be treated as drug offenders. Singapore's strict measures have quickly triggered a regional chain reaction. According to Indonesian media Katadata, the Indonesian National Narcotics Agency (BNN) is closely monitoring the effectiveness of Singapore's policy and is considering whether to follow suit and implement a similar ban on e-cigarettes containing etomidate. The situation in Malaysia is more complex. According to The Star, since 2021, tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, have brought 15.3 billion ringgit (approximately 23 billion RMB) in tax revenue to the government. However, public health concerns are growing. On August 27th, Malaysian parliamentarians presented a large number of e-cigarettes that looked like toys, candy packaging, and even in the form of lipsticks and USB drives. These products were clearly designed to attract minors. Data shows that the e-cigarette usage rate among the 15-24 age group in Malaysia soared from 1.1% in 2011 to 8.6% in 2023. A law enforcement storm is sweeping across the entire Southeast Asia to combat e-cigarettes. According to Singapore's report on August 31st, in just 9 days from August 15th to 23rd, the police, Central Narcotics Bureau, and Health Sciences Authority jointly carried out 16 multi-department operations, conducting surprise inspections of 151 bars, taverns, and KTVs, and inspecting over 1,600 customers. In Thailand, the police arrested 690 people and seized over 41 million Thai baht (approximately 8.4 million RMB) worth of e-cigarette products in a month from February to March 2025. The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society of Thailand also blocked 9,515 links for selling e-cigarettes. Vietnam has taken it a step further, implementing a complete ban on the production, trade, import, storage, transportation, and use of e-cigarettes starting from January 1, 2025. Those who violate the ban may face a fine of up to 300 million Vietnamese dong (approximately 900,000 RMB) or up to 15 years in prison. Facing an increasingly strict regulatory environment, multinational tobacco companies are beginning to re-evaluate their e-cigarette business in Southeast Asia. British American Tobacco Malaysia has announced that it will completely exit the e-cigarette market in Malaysia by the third quarter of 2025.

This exit is not only a response to regulatory pressure but also reflects the pessimistic judgment of the company on the future market prospects. Of course, this may be related to the new e-cigarette capacity policy in Malaysia in October: The new regulations include prohibiting the display of e-cigarette products in store counters, one-time cartridges, replaceable oil tanks, and one-time products with an oil content of no more than 3 milliliters, and bottle-type oil no more than 15 milliliters. We visited a large number of stores and found that the current sentiment at the terminals is more of a wait-and-see attitude. Some shopkeepers have stopped purchasing and hope to quickly dispose of their inventory. In the largest Central and South Market in Malaysia, apart from popular products like elfbar and relx, many brands have quietly been removed from the shelves. In other words, the entire market is undergoing a reshuffle. At the same time, the problem of the black market is becoming increasingly serious. According to the Singapore-based United Daily News, although the government has intensified its crackdown, underground transactions remain rampant. Criminals organize sales networks through encrypted communication software and use methods such as food delivery to evade law enforcement. The public health crisis is the core factor driving the comprehensive tightening of policies. Data from the Singapore Ministry of Health shows that in the first half of 2025, there were 28 cases of poisoning involving e-cigarettes containing etomidate, which is nearly three times the number for the entire year of 2024. Even more shocking is that in the fatal car accident on Panggau Road on May 13, 2025, the blood of the two deceased tested positive for etomidate, and more than 1,200 e-cigarette cartridges were found inside the accident vehicle. The Malaysian Ministry of Health also reported that a 13-year-old student was found using an e-cigarette containing a mixture of drugs, and even a middle school student was rushed to the hospital due to epilepsy caused by smoking an e-cigarette at school. The World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Regional Office has expressed support for this trend, emphasizing that e-cigarettes are not only harmful in themselves but also serve as carriers of new types of drugs. From the perspective of Geju, starting from Singapore listing etomidate as a drug, to Indonesia considering following suit, and then to the Malaysian parliament's strong condemnation of marketing targeting teenagers, Southeast Asian countries are forming a consensus of "zero tolerance" in regulation of e-cigarettes. Optimistically speaking, the golden age of the e-cigarette industry in Southeast Asia has come to an end, and a regulatory storm is sweeping across the entire region. For e-cigarette companies, the key issue lies in whether they can adapt to this new normal or withdraw from the market.