A leftover bill from the previous administration seeking to tighten tobacco and vaping product regulations is back before South Africa’s Parliament’s health committee.
However, the business community believes it needs to be properly consulted on its potential impact, media outlets have reported.
Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi is set to reintroduce the Tobacco Control & Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill to the portfolio committee on health on Wednesday.
The government is pressing on in its efforts to align South Africa’s smoking restrictions with World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.
Vaping advocates previously said the bill would destroy the vapor industry if it became law.
The Vapour Products Association of South Africa (VPASA) warned that, among other provisions, the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill opens an avenue for the government to ban the sale of flavored e-liquids, which tobacco harm advocates insist are key to entice smokers away from cigarettes.
At the current rate, tobacco harm reduction is likely to remain a fantasy in South Africa.
By Asanda Gcoyi
Like other countries around the world, South Africans have taken to vaping in great numbers over the past 10 years. What started as a small community of smokers seeking out less harmful alternatives to cigarettes has now morphed into a massive industry that is growing in leaps and bounds.
Since 2013, vaping devices in South Africa have become a ubiquitous sight, with many a smoker giving up their deadly habit in favor of vaping. For the past decade, vaping has remained outside the regulatory net while tobacco has been regulated through the Tobacco Products Control Act, 83, 1993. While hailed in its initial days, the act has failed to reduce South Africa’s smoking rates successfully.
This is reflected in recent statistics, which show that South Africa’s smoking rate has increased from about 18 percent in 2018 to over 25 percent in 2022. This is a result of lax law enforcement and the proliferation of cheap illicit tobacco products that are reported to account for over 60 percent of the South African smoked tobacco market.
For a time, harm reduction advocates were hopeful that vaping would make a significant contribution toward reducing smoking in the country. There was even a faint hope that regulators would embrace the vaping industry in the spirit of reducing the harm that smokers are exposed to and hopefully also reduce the external costs of smoking, which are borne mainly by the poorly performing public health system.
Not so. Over the past two years, the South African government has succumbed to pressure from the anti-smoking lobby, which relies on misinformation and disinformation to discredit tobacco harm reduction. In part, the antipathy toward vaping has arisen out of fears that young people were taking up vaping in droves.
Except, there is minimal evidence for this contention. The research that has been done is limited in scope and reach, and its conclusions cannot be generalized to the rest of the South African youth. No doubt, young people are curious and are trying out vaping. However, there is no evidence that large numbers are regular vapers or that they are progressing to smoking cigarettes, as has been claimed by those in favor of strict regulations of vaping.
Asanda Gcoyi
What is beyond any doubt is that a significant number of young people are smokers due to the accessibility and low prices of illicit tobacco. In its rush to be seen to be doing something about the manufactured crisis of youth vaping, the government has embarked on two processes: the introduction of a vaping tax and the amendment of the country’s tobacco control laws to include vaping.
After a two-year public consultation charade, the government started levying an excise duty on vaping liquids on June 1, 2023. This immediately made refillable vapes unaffordable for your average vaper, as the price of a 100 mL bottle more than doubled overnight. At ZAR2.90 ($0.16) per milliliter, South Africa’s rate is on the steep side and has made smoking more attractive from a price point of view.
Perversely, the excise duty has made disposable vapes much cheaper than refillable vapes. Up to the introduction of the tax, refillable vapes had been the preferred choice for smokers who were using vaping as a harm-reduced alternative to smoking. Common wisdom has it that disposable vapes are the most preferred option for young adults and teenagers.
In introducing the steep rate, the government has failed to deter the people who should not vape from doing so while forcing many former smokers and dual users to vape higher nicotine disposables and revert to smoking due to price.
Parallel to the tax’s introduction, Parliament has been processing the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill, which was introduced in December 2022. This anti-harm reduction draft law dismisses the possibility that vaping is less harmful than smoking and that there should be a differentiation in law between how the two are treated.
It conflates vaping and smoking and extends draconian regulations to vaping, some of which will virtually wipe out any communication about vaping as a harm-reduced alternative to smoking. In the process, it will confirm smoking’s importance as the only viable form of nicotine delivery for the millions of nicotine addicts who do not know enough about vaping or believe the disinformation that vaping is as harmful, if not more so, than smoking.
Supported by Bloomberg Foundation-funded organizations, the bill is a clear demonstration of the deep-seated disdain that the South African government has for the smoking public. In countless public hearings, the ruling party and its fellow travelers in the anti-tobacco campaign loudly proclaimed their contrived belief that harm reduction is a ruse.
They have used every opportunity to talk up the dangers of youth vaping while completely ignoring the plight of the more than 10 million smokers in South Africa. In their telling, smokers should just quit because vaping is as bad, if not worse, than smoking. In one hearing, they were even proud to display a poster showing the diseased body of a vaper, science notwithstanding.
While there is always a chance that the new government to be elected on May 29 will revisit the draft Bill submitted to Parliament, there is little hope among tobacco harm reduction experts of any change in direction. It has become clear that the South African government has lost its ability to make public health policy guided by its unique circumstances. It is content to defer to the ideological prescripts of the World Health Organization and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, even when it clearly goes against its own interests as a country.
This is a disheartening and anti-democratic exercise in policy capture, which, left unchecked, will prejudice South African smokers by foreclosing the possibility of switching to less harmful alternatives. At the current rate, tobacco harm reduction is likely to remain a pipe dream rather than a reality.
Asanda Gcoyi is CEO of the Vapour Products Association of South Africa.
As reported on June 22, the submission period was originally between June 21, 2023, and August 4, 2023.
The bill aims to regulate not only traditional tobacco smoking but also electronic cigarettes, such as vapes which have become immensely popular not only as a means to stop smoking normal cigarettes but as a gateway into nicotine consumption.
In broad terms, the bill aims to regulate the sale and advertising of both tobacco products and electronic delivery devices, reports Business Tech.
Parliament stated that: “the bill will also focus on legislating electronic nicotine and electronic non-nicotine delivery systems; introduce plain packaging with graphic health warnings and pictorials; introduce a total ban on display at the point of sale; introduce 100% smoke-free areas – indoor public places and certain outdoor areas; and a total ban on vending machines for tobacco products.
At the start of the month, the Portfolio on Health briefed Parliament on the new bill with mixed reactions. Many stakeholders were concerned as to the severe knock-on effects the new bill could have on the tobacco/smoking industry, which is a key driver of economic growth in South Africa.
Members of Parliament said that the bill could lead to more people turning to the already budding illicit tobacco industry and lead to job losses.
Speaking specifically regarding vape products, Asanda Gcoyi, the chief executive of the Vapour Products Association (VPASA), said that combustible alternatives to traditional cigarettes should form the backbone of tobacco harm reduction in South Africa and be seen more as a solution to a problem rather than a new problem.
She said that the government has managed to demonize vaping, marking it as more damaging than traditional cigarettes.
Vapes are not only getting regulated by the new bill but are also being drawn into the ambit of excise taxes, as provided in the updated Tobacco Product Excise.
Barry Buchman, the managing director of Vaperite, said that the newly imposed excise duty on vaping products has taken its toll on retailers, with many arguing that the tax has had the adverse effects of driving consumers towards the illicit market.
Buchman added that the tax is pushing consumers to purchase the highest and most addictive nicotine-content-e-liquid as it is a cheaper option, negating the original aim of the National Treasury to tackle health-related issues.
The introduction of the R2.90/ml ($0.15 cents) tax on vape juice on 1 June could more than double the price of the product in some instances, according to Asanda Gcoyi, CEO of the Vapour Products Association South Africa (VPASA).
R290 ($15) tax will be levied on a 100-milliliter bottle of vape juice, which costs R200, raising the price to R490 if all of the tax is passed on to consumers, according to News24.
Asanda Gcoyi
Gcoyi says the vaping industry is not surprised by the decision to impose the tax because it was discussed over several years.
“What is perhaps not ideal is the rate,” she adds. “The R2.90/ml as an introductory rate, in our view, is too high.”
The VPASA is expecting a 26 percent decrease in the demand for vape juice after the excise is introduced, which will affect businesses and employment, Gcoyi says.
The VPASA’s estimates show that 2,250 jobs could be lost by the end of the year. She believes people will “go back” to smoking relatively cheaper tobacco products.
South Africa’s new tobacco bill will destroy the vapor industry if it becomes law, the Vapour Products Association of South Africa (VPASA) warned.
Among other provisions, the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill opens an avenue for the government to ban the sale of flavored e-liquids, which tobacco harm advocates insist are key to entice smokers away from cigarettes.
VPASA contends that the government neglected to consult the industry about its proposed legislation, which mistakenly conflates vaping with smoking, according to the industry group.
“While the Cabinet statement announcing the adoption of the bill noted that the Department of Health had conducted extensive consultations, it conveniently failed to state that other than anti-tobacco campaigners, no other stakeholders had seen a copy of the revised bill before it was gazetted on Sept. 29,” VPASA CEO Asanda Gcoyi was quoted as saying by The Saturday Star. “This is despite numerous requests for a copy made by industry stakeholders.”
VPASA also believes the proposals on table are not based on science or empirical evidence, treating vaping and smoking as if they are one and the same thing. “Vaping requires a separate set of guidelines recognizing that it is not the same as smoking and therefore cannot be regulated in the same manner,” said Gcoyi.
Regulating the vaping industry in South Africa is complicated by deception and distraction.
By Asanda Gcoyi
The advent of electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) and electronic non-nicotine delivery systems (ENNDS) has taken the world of public health policy by surprise, it would seem. Nowhere is this more apparent than in developing and under-developed countries.
Where previously countries with little public health policymaking capacities could rely on the World Health Organization for guidance on tobacco regulation, the deep uncertainties plaguing the WHO on the best way to regulate ENNDS have left many countries unsure how to regulate important innovation in nicotine delivery.
In South Africa, this challenge has proven particularly acute. As a former leader in tobacco control, the country has struggled to institute an ENNDS regulatory framework. In May 2022, it was four years since the government first published the draft Control of Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill for public comment. The bill updates the country’s longstanding Tobacco Products Control Act, first adopted in 1993.
It does this by introducing more restrictions on tobacco sales and consumption. In a stroke of policy confusion, the bill extends the restrictions imposed on combustible cigarettes to ENNDS. To date, the draft bill has not been approved by the Cabinet for tabling in Parliament, precisely because it is based on misinformation and hubris.
In general, proposals to restrict smoking and make it difficult for nonsmokers to be initiated into the habit are to be welcomed. However, it is entirely misguided to have the prevention of initiation as its sole objective of public health policy in a country with a staggering 8 million smokers out of a population of 60 million.
South Africa does not have the resources to support smokers quitting. Other than a barely functional quit line, the country does not have any smoking cessation programs sponsored by the public health system. Nicotine-replacement therapy is not freely available. There are no counselling facilities.
Asanda Gcoyi
While the South African government cannot generally be regarded as lacking in policy-making capacity, especially in the area of tobacco control, it can be concluded that shifting narratives about ENNDS have left the government in a difficult position. WHO prevarication on the topic has not helped matters.
Where government could previously rely on the WHO to issue unequivocal policy guidance, the growing impasse between the WHO and members of the public health community in support of ENNDS as a harm reduced alternative to smoking has put government at a loss on how to proceed on ENNDS regulation. Growing scientific evidence challenging the natural inclination of the WHO to castigate behaviors it does not agree with is proving especially challenging.
While the ENNDS industry in South Africa shares government’s concern about a new generation of nicotine consumers, it remains a concern that government proposals to regulate ENNDS do not correlate with the intended outcome of reducing smoking.
As has been demonstrated in places such as the U.K., ENNDS are an efficient tool for moving smokers to potentially less harmful alternatives, with some even deciding to quit. It is a major public health policy opportunity, especially for developing countries such as South Africa, to reduce their costs of public health resulting from noncommunicable diseases associated with smoking.
In the four years that the government has attempted to come up with a regulatory framework for ENNDS, the Vapour Products Association of South Africa (VPASA) has been at the forefront of calling on government to consult beyond its fellow travelers in the anti-tobacco advocacy lobby. Sadly, this has not happened.
Instead, the government has continued to rely on outdated, heavily biased studies to back up its untenable policy positions, including the rightly maligned and withdrawn study by Stanton Glantz, a researcher with the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, titled “Electronic Cigarette Use and Myocardial Infarction Among Adults in the U.S. Population Assessment of Tobacco Health,” published by the Journal of the American Heart Association in 2019.
Currently, the government looks set to introduce a tax on vaping products. This is partly justified on the basis of this and other problematic studies, some conducted as long ago as 2014. This happens against the backdrop of new scientific studies demonstrating the likely benefits of adopting ENNDS as part of a broader tobacco control strategy.
Regrettably, South Africa is not alone in embracing such misdirected policies on ENNDS. Whereas there are easy wins on tobacco control, it seems governments across the developing world have resolved to limit the very innovation that promises the most success in weaning smokers off their deadly habit. From Botswana to Kenya to Mauritius, governments in Africa and other parts of the world are resorting to draconian measures to control ENNDS rather than looking closely at the science and embedding this in their regulatory approaches.
Overall, smokers, especially poor ones, are likely to be the biggest losers in the overzealous regulation of the vaping industry. This is a direct result of governments that fail to take into account their duty to listen not only to the views they like but also those they may not necessarily appreciate.
The truth is that even the most rabid anti-ENNDS campaigner accepts that there are major differences between smoking and vaping. As such, it makes sense that governments should differentiate between the two behaviors when putting in place regulatory measures. Such differentiation should favor ENNDS over combustible products. This is not happening in the developing world. Certainly, it is not happening in South Africa. Quite the opposite is being pursued.
Given tobacco’s dominant and entrenched position as the preferred nicotine-delivery system for most nicotine addicts, stringent restrictions against ENNDS disincentivize smokers from switching. Sustained disinformation and outright lies about ENNDS make this worse. Governments complain about the costs of smoking to the public purse yet seek to protect the biggest drivers of such costs by protecting the tobacco industry from the only real alternative to emerge against smoking.
The VPASA will remain committed to the fight against senseless regulation in South Africa. To not do so would be to fail the millions of South African smokers who are desperate for alternatives to tobacco.
Asanda Gcoyi is the CEO of the Vapour Products Association of South Africa.
