SOUTH AFRICA CAN SOLVE ITS SMOKING PROBLEM BY HEEDING NEW ZEALAND’S VAPE SUCCESS STORY

15 July 2024, Cape Town: 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, recognising that vaping is 95% safer than smoking, has endorsed it to help smokers quit. Vapes there are legal, widely available in various flavours 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.”

 

Notes to editors

Contact

Smoke Free Sweden

Jessica Perkins

info@smokefreesweden.org

www.smokefreesweden.org

About Smoke Free Sweden

Smoke Free Sweden is a movement that encourages other countries to follow the Swedish experience when it comes to Tobacco Harm Reduction. Sweden is about to become the first ‘smoke free’ European country, with a smoking rate below 5 percent. This remarkable achievement can be attributed to Sweden’s open attitude towards alternative nicotine products.

For more information on Sweden’s successful approach to becoming a smoke free nation, please visit www.smokefreesweden.org.