JOHOR BAHRU: At B Point, a bustling corner in Johor Bahru known for its shophouses offering money changer services, eateries and small grocers, a handful of retailers sell devices that look like toys. 

Shaped like candy containers, flash drives and headphone cases with sloped chimneys for inhalation, they hang openly across the wall.

But the labels for sweet-scented flavours - strawberry cheesecake, butterscotch doughnut and even local twists such as teh tarik and “apam balik” (peanut pancake) - are signs of something more sinister. 

These vapes - colourful electronic cigarettes - have been banned in Johor since the state government became the country’s first to stop issuing sales licensing for the products in 2016, as decreed by its ruler Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar. 

But despite being located just across the road from the Johor Bahru City Council (MBJB) main building, the municipal authority tasked with enforcing the ban, the stores are selling the vapes brazenly.

“The neighbouring shops also sell these vapes, not just us, so how can it be illegal?” said one grocery shopkeeper, a Bangladeshi national who wanted to be known only as Mr Ahmad.