Vapes have come under renewed criticism from pubic health advocates, with Deputy Health Minister Joe Phaahla accusing the tobacco industry of deliberately targeting non-smokers with its electronic devices, which it punts as “harm reduction” and designed to help people quit cigarettes.
Business Day reports that earlier this week, Phaala said the South African market had been flooded with electronic nicotine-delivery devices and flavoured liquids aimed at young people, in a “calculated effort to perpetuate nicotine addiction for profit”, and that these products were “not harmless”.
“They all carry serious health risks and often lead to dual use, which undermines any harm reduction narrative that the industry tries to promote,” he said at an event hosted by the Health Department to mark World No Tobacco Day (31 May).
Smoking and e-cigarettes use had shot up in SA between 2010 and 2024, indicating new-generation products were not helping people quit cigarettes, said Lekan AyoYusuf, director of the Africa Centre for Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Policy Research.
The proportion of people over 16 who smoked tobacco rose from 18% in 2010 to 34% in 2024, while e-cigarette use rose from 0.48% to 7.7% over the same period.
The number of smokers in SA rose from 9.5m to 14.9m during this time, demonstrating that the introduction of e-cigarettes had not led to a reduction in smoking, he said.
“You can’t have harm reduction if someone who never smoked starts using e-cigarettes,” he added.
Ayo-Yusuf appealed to MPs to consider the data as they deliberate on the draft Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill, now before the Portfolio Committee on Health.
Delays in processing the Bill, first flighted in 2018, had enabled unrestricted vape sales to teenagers and their use was soaring among schoolchildren, said University of Cape Town pulmonologist Richard van Zyl Smit.
He led a study, published in The Lancet last year, that found one in six SA high school students vaped, almost half of them within an hour of waking up, suggesting they were highly addicted to nicotine.
“This is a designer drug,” he said.
Business Day PressReader article – Tobacco industry accused of pushing vapes on teens (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Vaping peaks in South African high schools – UCT study
Vaping among teens at SA’s affluent schools ‘a significant problem’
SA study finds high school vaping ‘off the charts’