Described by opponents as ‘moralistic’, South Africa’s vapor industry now faces a new bill, which would impose heavy restrictions on smoking and vaping. According to the Control of Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill, the new law would impose a ban on smoking in publicly accessible buildings, and a ten meters radius surrounding all such buildings, as well as on smoking in cars with passengers. Additionally, it also includes vapor and heat-not-burn systems in “smoking.”
The Africa Harm Reduction Alliance (AHRA) strongly opposes this bill. Speaking on behalf of the AHRA, co-founder Dr. Delon Human said:
“Vaping and e-cigarettes have the potential to prevent tobacco-related disease and save hundreds of millions of lives from premature death. For the sake of population and individual health, it is imperative that vaping is recognized as an alternative to combustible tobacco products, within the broader context of tobacco harm reduction.”
AHRA co-founder Dr. Kgosi Letlape announced that the bill is based on incomplete information from 2015, meaning prior to the Royal College of Physicians findings which shows that vaping is ~95% less harmful than smoking. Moreover, the bill relies on claims from Dr. Stanton Glantz who has been famous for being animus toward tobacco harm reduction in general and vaping in particular. Dr. Letlape added:
“As a health activist, I am targeting smokers. I am not trying to open a market for new smokers or new vapers And because you are targeting a particular population it should not be difficult to talk about adding new information to that bill.”
