The proposed legislation tightens restrictions on where people can smoke, with hefty fines and even potential jail time for those who break the rules.
It also introduces stringent regulations for vaping and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), which are currently not addressed by existing laws, according to media reports.
There is significant opposition from the business and labor sectors.
Critics argue that the new restrictions could adversely affect the tobacco industry, including farmers and retailers.
This move is part of South Africa’s broader effort to align its tobacco policies with international standards, particularly those set by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
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.
The South African Parliament accepted submission of the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill, which will replace the Tobacco Products Control Act of 1993, reports Business Insider.
The bill, which was tabled in 2018, aims “to deter people, especially children and youth, from using tobacco products, encourage existing users to quit and protect nonsmokers from tobacco smoke exposure.” Regulation will cover sale, advertising, packaging and labeling of tobacco products as well as where smoking and vaping are allowed.
Under the bill, smoking and vaping in enclosed public spaces will be prohibited. Smoking too close to “an operable window or ventilation inlet of an entrance or exit” of “an enclosed public place, enclosed workplace or in or on a public conveyance” is also prohibited.
The health minister can also prohibit smoking in certain outdoor areas to “reduce or prevent the public’s exposure to smoking.” Smoking in vehicles or enclosed private spaces while in the presence of a child or nonsmoker will be prohibited. Smoking in an enclosed common area of a multi-unit residence will be banned as well.
The bill will also mandate generic packaging for tobacco products; the packaging “must have a uniform plain color and texture” and be of the same “size, type and shape.” The health minister will be responsible for setting standardized packaging and labeling requirements.
The only branding allowed on packaging will be brand name and product name in a standard color and typeface. Packages will be dominated by graphic health warnings.
Additionally, stores will only be allowed to display “a single prescribed notice informing consumers that a list of relevant or related products for sale, along with their prices and quantities, may be requested at the sales counter.” Retailers and wholesalers will no longer be allowed to display tobacco products. They “may make the product available to consumers upon request, provided that the requestor is not a child.”
This bill could also affect flavored vapor products. The health minister can prohibit “any substance or ingredient that creates a specified color, characterized flavor, smell or effect on the consumer.”
“The industry wants to be regulated,” said Asanda Gcoyi, CEO of the Vapour Products Association of South Africa. “We have to be regulated.”
“But we propose that government use [vapes and e-cigarettes] as a tobacco harm reduction product [and] this bill does not actually go that far.”
The National Treasury and South African Revenue Service (SARS) is standing by its e-cigarette tax proposals despite protests from businesses, reports Businesstech.
Speaking to the parliamentary standing committee on finance this week, the National Treasury and SARS responded to comments by businesses regarding changes proposed under both the Draft Tax Administration Amendment Bill and the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill.
The National Treasury wants to apply an average excise rate for e-cigarettes of ZAR2.91 ($0.16) per milliliter and apportioned in a ratio of 70:30 between nicotine and non-nicotine elements.
Vapor companies said that considering South African consumers’ purchasing power, a ZAR0.70 duty per milliliter is more than appropriate.
The industry also cautioned that excise duty on vaping products would affect the trade of legitimate tax-paying vendors, drive job losses in the sector and drive consumers to more harmful combustible cigarettes.
The National Treasury countered that the tax is necessary and legitimate and would assist in closing regulatory loopholes that leave South Africans in vulnerable positions.
It added that the long-term health effect of e-cigarettes are unknown, and therefore the government is taking cautionary steps, even if vaping is marketed as a less harmful alternative to smoking.
In a recent report, BAT South Africa stated that the proposed excise duty on vaping products should be imposed on all “actors” equally to ensure fair competition and an equal playing field for all participants. However, prices would rise, the company warned.
The current proposed rate is an introductory rate that may be adjusted in the short to medium term, the Treasury said.
The proposed excise duty on vaping products in South Africa should be imposed on all “actors” equally to ensure fair competition and an equal playing field for all participants, according to BAT South Africa. However, prices would rise, the company warned.
Speaking at a standing committee on finance, the tobacco giant represented by Dane Mouyis said that according to its own data, electronic vaping products account for less than 0.5 percent of the entire nicotine product market of South Africa, according to Business Tech.
However, there is an over-proportioned number of retailers that are creating their own vaping liquid.
Mouyis said that many people are “doing it themselves” importing a few litres of nicotine liquid only to turn it into many more vials of vape liquid – an excisable product.
Under National Treasury’s proposal, the average excise rate for e-cigarettes is proposed at R2.91 ($0.17) per millilitre and apportioned in a ratio of 70:30 between nicotine and non-nicotine elements.
To ensure that tax is gathered from this trade, Mouyis said that in collaboration with Oxford Economics, it was found that a rate of R1.45/ml should be the absolute upper limit of the duty.
The representative said that considering South Africa’s affordability, a 70 cents duty is more appropriate.
Asanda Gcoyi from the Vapour Products Association of South Africa, which represent both manufacturers and retailers, warned that the tax would drive price increases onto the consumer, and one could see the average price of vape products increase by 138% and e-liquid consumption drop by 36%.
BAT stressed that an aggressive excise tax would rush consumers away to an illicit market that would subsequently grow. Gcoyi echoed this sentiment.
The tobacco company proposed the following changes for vaping products in the country:
A registration system must be introduced with the excise for manufacturers and retailers – to open the market up to the South African Revenue Service (SARS). Gcoyi added that the proposed tax was problematic as the rationale behind it was flawed.
She said that the scientific basis of the tax is inaccurate in that the National Treasury sees the vaping industry as attempting to undermine global tobacco efforts – while many international studies have actually pointed to vaping as being a harm reduction practice dissimilar to traditional smoking.
She added that the goal of the excise is unclear as the Treasury has provided little detail on how it would be beneficial to public health, and not enough research has been concluded on youth uptake.
The introduction of the excise will have significant unintended and irrational consequences, one being that the proposed duty would make vaping more expensive than smoking and create an illicit trade – thus going against the doctrine of harm reduction, said Gcoyi.
The Vapour Products Association has since called on businesses to oppose the excise duty and for the Treasury to conduct further market research on the implications of its proposal.
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.
The head of the Vapour Products Association of South Africa (VPASA) says the booming sector is plagued by continual misinformation and disinformation despite scientific evidence demonstrating that vaping is less harmful than smoking.
Chief executive of VPASA, Asanda Gcoyi said vaping is the single, most effective tool which can move smokers away from the deadly addiction to cigarettes, according to a story on IOL.
“We accept that vaping is not without risk, but it is a potentially less harmful alternative to smoking. What we cannot afford to do is to unduly stymie this technological innovation that can be the single most effective tool to move smokers away from their deadly addiction to cigarettes,” she said. “We have a collective responsibility to share correct information about vaping and other less harmful alternatives to smoking so that smokers can make an informed decision for their health.”
In the ongoing efforts to shed light and demystify vaping in South Africa, VPASA is on a drive to ultimately debunk some of the most prominent vaping myths circulating, according to Gcoyi.
The first myth is that vaping is as harmful as smoking.
“Although not risk-free, vaping is a potentially less harmful alternative to combustible tobacco. There are significantly lower levels of exposure to harmful chemicals in people who switch from smoking to vaping compared with those who continue to smoke,” she says. “The science that dates back as far as 2015 says vaping is a less harmful alternative to smoking, and recent updates continue to support this.”
The second myth is that vaping causes popcorn lung.
“According to Cancer Research UK, popcorn lung (bronchiolitis obliterans) is an uncommon type of lung disease, but it is not cancer,” says Gcoyi. “It is caused by a build-up of scar tissue in the lungs, which blocks the flow of air. E-cigarettes don’t cause the lung condition known as popcorn lung.”
Gcoyi said there was also a myth that vaping causes lung cancer.
“The fact is that burning tobacco in all its forms means exposure to carcinogenic chemicals. If you are a smoker, switching to vaping will reduce your risk of cancer. Most toxins from smoking are absent in electronic nicotine and non-nicotine delivery systems aerosol, she said. “Electronic non-nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) are a tool for consuming nicotine that is less harmful than if consumed via the combustion of tobacco. Coffee is brewed for caffeine. Vaping atomizes e-liquid for nicotine. Both caffeine and nicotine would [be harmful] if burned.”
