Durban - While agreeing laws were needed to protect children, people in the vaping industry are angry at the government’s “bullying tactics” in a new bill and want a voice in the process.
The Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill was tabled in Parliament last month and will now go through the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces for review and adoption.
The bill, among other things, seeks to regulate the vaping industry amid growing concern that the flavours, fragrances and “cool” designs make vaping attractive to children and that measures to prevent this should be implemented.
The Health Department’s spokesman, Foster Mohale, said vaping was smoking, whether it was it the form of an e-cigarette or hubbly bubbly.
He said just like any other sector where new developments were regulated, this also had to happen in health.
The Fair-trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita) said the proposed amendments to the current legislation would result in a fiscal challenge for its members and the tobacco industry because they would be at the mercy of a shrinking market.
Fita chairperson Sinenhlanhla Mnguni said in future they wanted the government to engage more with all manufacturers on policy amendments and rejected the heavy-handed bullying tactics and threats to government by foreign multinationals.
“Fita wishes to adapt to the changing market conditions, and eagerly welcomes some of the measures that will potentially have the knock-on effect of levelling the playing fields.
“Fita has been at pains to shed light on the disproportionate treatment of, and by, the dominating large multinationals and unscrupulous activities attributed to them.”
In 2019, Kurt Yeo closed his vape shop and became a full-time pro-vaping activist.
Yeo said throughout his life he had a long and painful association with smoking and both his parents had died of smoking-related illnesses. He had been a heavy smoker, smoking about 40 a day, but three days after he started vaping he gave up cigarettes forever and “felt like someone who had finished a Comrades Marathon, it was so liberating”.
Most of the customers at his vaping shop were elderly, many were cancer sufferers or had experienced multiple heart attacks. Because of vaping, they were all able to stop smoking cigarettes and after researching the subject he realised vaping was a lifesaving intervention.
He started a consumer group called Vaping Saved My Life.
Yeo said there were several overseas studies that showed vaping was “massively less harmful than smoking”. He said while it was not completely safe, it gave people a better quality of life than smoking cigarettes.
He believes vaping should be regulated, not be sold to children and not be allowed in enclosed spaces, but the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill as it stands contained several draconian measures which would lead to a massive underground movement.
He said there was only one smoking cessation clinic in the country and if the government wanted people to stop smoking, it had to put more measures in place to assist those who were willing to quit.
The bill prohibits the display of tobacco products, strict rules for cigarette packaging and no advertising of tobacco products. Smoking indoors, even in private homes where there are children and non-smokers, could result in fines or imprisonment.
National Council Against Smoking deputy director Dr Sharon Nyatsanza said it did not matter what it looked like or smelled like, tobacco killed.
She said the Bill was balanced and took comprehensive steps to protect people and the only way to protect non-smokers was to prevent smoking indoors.
She said currently e-cigarettes were being sold and there was no standard to determine what their ingredients were and how much nicotine they contained. The Bill was the first step towards regulation.
Nyatsanza said the marketing tactics used appealed to children because of flavours like candy, blueberry and all the attractive smells.
“There are a lot of products on the market and our old laws are not advanced enough to deal with these products,” Nyatsanza said.
Yusuf Abramjee, the founder of Tax Justice SA, said the country’s cigarette trade was controlled by criminals who flooded the market with illicit cigarettes and were guilty of tax evasion.
He said these “criminal manufacturers” did not obey the current laws and would also disregard the new ones.
“Imposing new restrictions on legitimate cigarette manufacturers who pay their taxes will simply price them out of the market and push even more customers to the illicit trade, which will eventually control the whole market. Thousands of honest jobs along the legitimate supply chain will be lost,” said Abramjee.
He also scoffed at the idea of regulating the packaging of cigarettes to make it less attractive to smokers.
“That will give consumers the choice between buying legal plain packs or illicit packs that are branded and colourful and pay no taxes. The criminals will win again,” Abramjee said.
Single mother Aasimah Tayob owns an e-cigarette shop called Vanilla Vapes in Witbank.
Tayob said her husband started the business seven years ago and when he died she had no option but to quickly learn the ropes so she could provide for her children and her staff, who also have families to support.
She said most people in the vaping industry wanted it to be regulated so the government could clamp down on the mass import of disposable e-cigarettes which had a high nicotine content and weren’t safe.
Tayob said regulations which prohibited the sale of vaping products to schoolchildren was crucial.
Her main fear relating to the tobacco bill was that the proposed tax on vaping products would be too high for many shops like hers to remain open.
The Independent on Saturday