Tobacco is a major contributing factor to many chronic diseases. It has been recognised for decades that smoking is an addictive behaviour with negative impact on social, economic and health of individuals and societies. Tobacco use is responsible for one in ten adult deaths in the world. Globally, smoking claims 5 million lives annually which will double by the year 2020. Whilst it has been recognised that most smokers are in developing countries, governments in these countries faced huge burden to reduce the use of tobacco.

Realising that multi-prong and multi-sectoral approach are effective and sustainable in long term to control tobacco use, researchers and tobacco control advocates linked to Clearing House for Tobacco Control (C-TOB) in National Poison Centre, Universiti Sains Malaysia have been toiling with the idea of forming a national body which would co-ordinate efforts by NGOs to fight this epidemic. in 2003, after the conference on "Communicating the Evidence for Tobacco Control" organised by C-TOB, serious efforts have been made to form the Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC). Since then, C-TOB has been instrumental in laying the groundwork for the formation of the Council. It has acted as an Interim Secretariat to convene multi-stakeholders meeting that worked on the draft constitution and framework of the Council. The first meeting to discuss the formation of MCTC was held on 17th July 2003 in Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, UKM. It was attended by a number of C-TOB advisors and staff and representatives from six organisations namely, Malaysian Association for Environmental Health (MAEH), Malaysian Association of Maternal and Neonatal Health (MAMANEH), National Heart Foundation, Primary Care Doctors' Organisation Malaysia (PCDOM), Malaysian Public Health Specialists' Association and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The meeting was chaired by Professor Syed Mohamed Aljunid from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The participants of the meeting agreed unanimously to work together towards the setting up the Council. The Interim Secretariat has taken the initiative to check with the Registrar of Societies on the rules and regulations of setting up a national council. Questionnaires were sent to a number of organisations to understand the nature of their work and their contributions towards tobacco control in the country.

After a series of meetings and consultations, the Interim Secretariat completed the preparation of the draft constitution. About fifty (50) organisations were identified to be involved in tobacco control and showed interest to join the Council. These organisations were invited to attend the Inaugural Meeting. The Inaugural Meeting was held on 16th January 2004 in Grand Seasons Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, officiated by Deputy Director-General of Health Malaysia, Dato' Dr Shafie Ooyub. Formal application was made to Ros in April 2004. The Council was officially approved by ROS on 28th September 2004.