Cape Town - With less than a month to the deadline for public comment on Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill, tobacco industry organisations have launched a no-holds-barred attack on the bill with the hope of getting it scrapped.
At a media briefing, British American Tobacco South Africa (Batsa) called the bill, currently under consideration by Parliament, “the biggest missed opportunity in decades to improve tobacco regulation and save lives in South Africa”.
Batsa general manager Johnny Moloto said the market had not yet recovered from the 2020 tobacco sales ban imposed as part of the Covid-19 regulations during the national state of disaster.
The Western Cape High Court declared the ban to have been both unconstitutional in December 2020 and invalid, and in June last year the Supreme Court of Appeal underlined the high court judgment by dismissing an appeal against it from the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta).
Moloto said the Department of Health’s proposals under the bill, to introduce measures like plain packaging and retail display bans would simply incentivise remaining smokers of legal cigarettes to migrate to illicit products.
“These smokers will forever be beyond the reach of the government’s tobacco control measures, effectively handing the illicit market another gift-wrapped opportunity to grow.”
He said Batsa supported the need for regulation and was committed to reducing the health impacts of its business by giving smokers a viable opportunity to migrate from cigarettes to “less risky products” such as vapes.
To back up his claims of vapes being less risky, Moloto pointed at a scheme in England where the government’s National Health Service recently launched a “Swop to Stop” programme where smokers will be encouraged to swap cigarettes for vapes to cut smoking rates.
Limpopo Tobacco Processors (LTP) director François van der Merwe argued the case against the bill from the point of view of farmers and tobacco industry workers.
Van der Merwe said there were farmers who grow the tobacco used in South African tobacco products and they in turn employ thousands of people in rural areas.
Earlier this year, LTP launched a Stop the Bill campaign to encourage supporters to write to and petition Parliament.
Meanwhile the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) is working with other health and advocacy organisations under the umbrella of the Protect Our Next (PON) campaign to provide research evidence in support of the bill.
SAMRC said it had conducted several studies in conjunction with other research partners and these had highlighted the need for the strengthening of tobacco control legislation in South Africa.
This was needed “to bring all new and related products like e-cigarettes within the regulatory framework of the country. The tobacco bill when passed into law would ensure the lives of the population are adequately protected.”
Submissions can be made until August 4 and comments can be emailed to tobaccobill@parliament.gov.za or online at https://forms.gle/FLrhnvThDk8ccLG97.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za