SOUTH AFRICA CAN SOLVE ITS SMOKING PROBLEM BY HEEDING NEW ZEALAND’S VAPE SUCCESS STORY
Smoking is on the increase in South Africa due to misinformation and hostility towards vapes, while other nations are using these safer alternatives to win the war against the deadly toll of tobacco, according to leading health experts.
New Zealand halved its smoking rates from 13.3% in 2018 to 6.8% in 2023 by promoting the use of vapes, international harm reduction specialist Dr. Marewa Glover concludes in a new report for Smoke Free Sweden.
Yet smoking prevalence has risen by more than 20% in a decade in South Africa, where authorities are intent on treating less harmful alternatives like vapes just as harshly as combustible cigarettes.
New Zealand’s government, recognizing that vaping is 95% safer than smoking, has endorsed it to help smokers quit. Vapes there are legal, widely available in various flavors and nicotine strengths, and affordable due to low taxes.
In South Africa, a “misinformation epidemic” means that 78% of smokers mistakenly believe that vapes are just as harmful as smoking. Meanwhile, a new tobacco control bill proposes regulating vapes the same as deadly cigarettes, with display bans, high taxes, and jail terms for failure to comply with the new legislation.
Smoke-Free Sweden leader Dr. Delon Human says policymakers must discard their opposition to vapes if they are to reduce the 40,000 South African lives lost to tobacco-related disease every year.
“The World Health Organization’s figures show South Africa’s smoking rate is surging, yet policymakers are still determined to block the ‘fire escape’ that vapes can provide for these smokers,” Dr. Human said.
“Like Sweden, which is about to become smoke-free, New Zealand has shown that making safer alternatives accessible, acceptable and affordable can dramatically reduce smoking rates.
“To rewrite its own dismal story on smoking and to start saving lives, South Africa should heed these lessons and adopt tobacco harm reduction as a public health strategy.”
