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Iman Muttaqin Yusof

Viral “zombie vape” videos of young Malaysian men appearing dazed and disoriented after vaping have intensified concern that drug-laced liquids are spreading through the country’s booming e-cigarette market.
The clips, shared widely on social media over the past month, showed local men slumped on the ground or behaving erratically after allegedly inhaling piu-piu or piao-piao (online slang for drug-laced vape liquids).
At least two viral cases triggered arrests and fresh police warnings regarding people “vaping excessively and carrying out shameful acts”.
“The trend not only gives a negative image to the younger generation but is feared to become a medium for normalising the culture of substance abuse and an unhealthy lifestyle,” Hussein Omar Khan, director of the Federal Narcotics Crime Investigation Department, said in a statement on Tuesday.
He added that some vape products were suspected of being mixed with dangerous substances or synthetic drugs that could threaten users’ safety.
Police arrested three people, including a suspected supplier, and seized a bottle of vape liquid believed to contain ketamine, after a video showed two men in an intoxicated daze at a residential parking space in Selangor.
Another three men, who live-streamed their vaping to receive gifts from viewers, were also taken into custody in Johor Bahru.
The arrests followed a nationwide enforcement blitz from April 13-17 targeting vape sellers suspected of distributing drug-laced liquids.
Police raided some 1,670 premises, resulting in the arrests of five people under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, and the seizure of more than 200kg (440lbs) of vape liquid worth 4.6 million ringgit (US$1.16 million).


Piu-piu panic
Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh, a public health policy expert at the National University of Malaysia, said that vaping “started out as a so-called therapy for smokers” but had since moved into a wider youth consumer market.
“It was not meant to become a consumer product for youngsters,” Sharifa said.
She said Malaysia’s susceptibility to illicit trade – from contraband cigarettes to illegal vape products – had created space for drug suppliers to exploit a market monitored by overstretched enforcement agencies
“We are understaffed. We can’t really blame our policing and also enforcement. Regulation and policing really takes a toll in Malaysia.”
Synthetic drugs, including opioids, amphetamines and new psychoactive substances, were increasingly found in liquid form and linked to vape products, Sharifa said, adding that young users often assumed they were inhaling nicotine or mild substances such as ketum – a locally used kratom leaf brew with stimulant-like effects – or cannabis.
“They don’t really know what they are using,” she said. “They think this is just vape, this is just nicotine. But suddenly, you have something which is stronger.”
Sharifa said the rise of new psychoactive substances made the drug scourge harder to tackle because some items were difficult to detect through common field tests and required specific laboratory testing.
“It is a growing epidemic of drugs,” she said. “We know this is a growing problem.”

Malaysia was already grappling with a teen vaping problem before the piu-piu episode. A National Health and Morbidity Survey found e-cigarette and vape use among Malaysians aged 13 to 17 rose from 9.8 per cent in 2017 to 14.9 per cent in 2022. Among boys, the rate was 23.3 per cent, while it stood at 6.2 per cent for girls.
The World Health Organization’s Malaysia office warned last year that e-cigarettes had become a growing public health crisis among children and youth despite the country tightening regulations in 2024 by setting age restrictions, aligning packaging and labelling rules and banning advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
Malaysia’s Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Act 2024, known as Act 852, covers the registration, sale and advertising of tobacco products, smoking substances and substitute tobacco products. It also prohibits the sale of such products to minors.
But the latest police warning suggests the problem has moved beyond nicotine addiction and into a drug enforcement challenge.
Narcotics department director Hussein said vape abuse among teenagers was becoming increasingly worrying because it could become “a gateway to more serious drug abuse”.
Malaysian police have urged parents and the public to monitor their children’s behaviour, warning that the surge in illegal vaping cannot be taken lightly as it becomes a major public health threat in Southeast Asia


Singapore, which banned vaping in 2018, said last year that one in three confiscated devices tested in July contained etomidate, an anaesthetic that can trigger hallucinations and seizures.
Etomidate was also found in vaping products in Indonesia and Thailand, with Thai authorities detecting ketamine and methamphetamine in some samples, Reuters reported.
According to Sharifa, Malaysia has not yet reached the scale of the “zombie” drug scenes seen in parts of the United States, where fentanyl and other synthetic drugs have hollowed out communities. But she said the warning signs were visible.
“You’ve heard about the zombie epidemic in Philadelphia in the US and many other states in America,” she said. “Not yet in Malaysia, but it’s coming. That’s the problem. We have to be ready for this.”
Last year, the US recorded about 38,000 deaths involving synthetic opioids, primarily illicit fentanyl, government data showed.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says illegal fentanyl can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin and up to 100 times more powerful than morphine.


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Viral ‘zombie vape’ videos prompt arrests and warnings of a growing substance abuse crisis in the country


Viral ‘zombie vape’ videos prompt arrests and warnings of a growing substance abuse crisis in the country.


In Malaysia, drug-laced vape seizures stoke US-like ‘zombie epidemic’ fears

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Viral ‘zombie vape’ videos prompt arrests and warnings of a growing substance abuse crisis in the country

Viral ‘zombie vape’ videos prompt arrests and warnings of a growing substance abuse crisis in the country