Read articles from South Africa

August 30, 2023 by businesstech.co.za

While all parties agree smoking and vaping should be regulated in South Africa, a significant industry player is contesting the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill in its current form. Multinational tobacco company Philip Morris South Africa (PMSA) is pushing back strongly against the bill, saying that’s proposed laws lack nuance and scientific justification – to the extent that they are irrational.

August 10, 2023 by southafricatoday.net

The 10th Conference of the Parties (COP) convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) will be taking place in November 2023 to discuss the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The COP will discuss updates to the approach taken by member states in implementing the FCTC. “It is an appropriate time for leaders in South Africa and elsewhere to indicate the inappropriate stance of WHO and regulators in not supporting the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDs),” says award-winning pharmacological healthcare consultant, Professor Praneet Valodia. “The WHO has an obligation to support smokers and save lives.”

August 03, 2023 by theconversation.com

Throughout the world, governments impose excise taxes on products like alcohol and tobacco to reduce their demand. The South African government has implemented a tax on vaping products for the same reason. Reducing demand is necessary as there is growing evidence that vaping products are not harmless. The new vaping tax has enraged vaping lobby groups and vaping manufacturers. The vaping industry argues that e-cigarettes are less harmful than traditional cigarettes. It also claims that the tax will spawn an illicit industry, that people will go back to smoking traditional cigarettes, and the tax will not dissuade the youth from starting vaping.

July 27, 2023 by msn.com

The new Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill, which is intended to further regulate the smoking industry, is open for public comment – but how many smokers consider the financial impact of their habits?

First, there’s the actual expense in your grocery budget – a pack of 20 Peter Stuyvesant Red cigarettes cost R46. If you smoke a pack a day, that works out to R322 a week – R1,288 to R1,610 a month. According to Momentum Myriad in 2020, a smoker’s life insurance premium was as much as 80% more than that of a non-smoker.

July 26, 2023 by dailymaverick.co.za

While smokers have long been rated as higher risk when it comes to health and life insurance, people who vape are now also considered candidates with a higher risk.

July 11, 2023 by moneyweb.co.za

Smokers feel they have had it rough these last few years, what with the outright tobacco ban for five months during Covid and tighter restrictions on where and how you can smoke.

Older smokers recall with fondness the days you could smoke on aircraft, in pubs and restaurants, and at the office. Those days are over, but the war on smokers continues, and a quarter of South Africans who smoke don’t like this one bit, as the comments on the Dear South Africa platform make clear.

In future, if the Department of Health (DoH) has its way, retailers will have to hide their cigarette displays from public eyes, cigarettes will come in plain packets, [...]

May 22, 2023 by dailymaverick.co.za

There have recently been misleading calls for South Africa to adopt the Swedish model of regulating e-cigarettes, a model positioned by tobacco-industry supported organisations as making alternative products widely available, instead of regulating or restricting the sale and marketing of these products.

Articles and a full-page advert in the Sunday Times of 30 April 2023 link back to SmokeFreeSweden.org. In fact, Sweden strictly regulates e-cigarettes and the country’s laudable progress in becoming smoke-free is attributable to a long history of strong tobacco control measures starting in 1975. 

May 09, 2023 by businesstech.co.za

Market disruptors such as e-cigarettes have reshaped how the government regulates and taxes smoking in South Africa.

From 1 June 2023, nicotine-substitute solutions, including vaping products, will be taxed at a flat excise duty rate of R2.90/ml – illustrating a keen move by the government to extend the tax net over developing and new methods of smoking in the country.

However, the biggest player in the Tobacco space, British American Tobacco (BAT), as well as the Vapour Products Association of South Africa, have warned that the new tax will likely end up pushing prices up by as much as 138%, forcing consumers to the illicit market.

February 03, 2023 by mg.co.za

Every South African has the right to equality, the right to access information, the right to healthcare, and the right to life, according to the Bill of Rights enshrined in the constitution. This includes the 12.7 million South Africans who consume nicotine in all forms. 

The Control of Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill will rob people of these rights because of the tightened restrictions around one of the most effective tools in reducing harm and achieving smoking cessation.

December 12, 2022 by newsday.co.zw

AFRICAN governments have been implored to adopt new strategies to reduce public health threats caused by tobacco as eight million deaths are recorded every year.

Health experts, who converged in Nairobi, Kenya, last week at the second edition of the Harm Reduction Exchange, noted that the tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced. [...] The experts revealed that all forms of tobacco were harmful where cigarette smoking is the most common form of tobacco use worldwide.