On Wednesday you delivered a medium-term budget policy statement premised on fiscal consolidation and prudent financial management — anchored on reduction of debt, narrowing the budget deficit and growth-led spending.
You also reported a tax revenue shortfall of R22.3bn, meaning the temptation might be to announce higher excise duties on alcohol and tobacco products when you table the main budget in February next year in a bid to boost tax collections.
In the budget you tabled in 2022, you introduced excise duty on vaping e-liquids.
My challenge to you, minister, is a simple one. Can you tell us what measurement tools you use to determine if there has been a demand reduction in vaping products — especially among the youth — after implementing an excise tax on these products as a stated objective of the explanatory memorandum on the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill, 2022?
We also want to know if the excise tax on vaping products has had an impact on the overall consumer nicotine market. How many South Africans have quit nicotine altogether? How many have been forced to purchase products with higher levels of nicotine based on the per-volume model? How many have been forced to migrate to combustible tobacco, thereby introducing the much-feared gateway effect through government policy?
Minister, you may have heard from the lobby groups — and even your colleagues in the department of health — who advance the mistaken argument that excise duties on vaping products are consistent with recommendations on harm reduction. But they are mistaken.
Our challenge to you, Minister, is to show us how excise duties on vaping products have led to a drop in smoking rates. Where are your scientific studies that prove how higher excise duties lead to harm reduction?
The Global Audit Tobacco Survey: South Africa, conducted by the South African Medical Research Council in 2021, was the first and last survey of its kind, meaning there aren’t recent measuring tools or mechanisms that can show if your tax-led interventions are working.
The 2021 survey, meanwhile, recommended increased taxes on all tobacco and nicotine products to a 70% share of the retail price — this was consistent with demand reduction.
We understand this survey formed the core basis of your decision to introduce excise duty on vaping products. But we disagree with this one-sided survey. According to it, almost 30% of adults aged 15 years and older reported using some form of tobacco product. Of these, 11.1-million smoke tobacco daily. The survey found that only 36.1% of adults had ever heard of electronic tobacco products, and only 3.8% of men and 0.7% of women were using electronic cigarettes at the time of the survey.
It correctly states that 65.7% of adults who smoke planned to or were thinking of quitting. According to it, 40.5% of adults who smoked tobacco in the 12 months before the survey was conducted had made a quit attempt in the past 12 months.
Indeed, many adult smokers have made an attempt to quit cigarettes but are unable to for myriad reasons. But instead of encouraging these smokers to switch to alternatives proven to be less harmful than traditional tobacco, your government has gone out of its way to demonise vaping products and club them with tobacco products that have a higher risk profile.
What we know so far is that the increase in smoking rates is sufficient proof that ill-considered government interventions — including a ban on advertising and promotion of tobacco products — have not had any effect in helping people quit smoking.
Furthermore, by increasing excise duties on vaping and similar products, the government is taking away less harmful options from the most marginalised South Africans by making these products unaffordable. This has risked exposing smokers, especially those from poor and marginalised communities, to an influx of products from the illicit market, which has flooded poor communities with absurdly cheap tobacco products when the government increased excise duties over the years.
This is what happens when badly implemented policies boomerang and hurt those they purportedly meant to protect.
There’s conclusive proof that vaping is a less harmful alternative that could help reduce smoking and related disease problems, but there is a misconception out there that the activity is more harmful than smoking. The truth is there is currently no better alternative for those who have been struggling with smoking addiction than taking up vaping.
In 2022, the UK office for health improvement and disparities reiterated a fact contained in a 2015 report that vaping posed only a small fraction of the risk of smoking, and that the 95% less harmful statement was broadly accurate. According to their findings, smoking is at least 20 times more harmful to users than vaping.
In 2023, the health department in Canada encouraged adults who smoke to completely switch to vaping as a less harmful option than continuing smoking.
The US Food and Drug Administration also had this to say about the benefits of e-cigarettes versus traditional smoking: “For adults who smoke, switching completely from cigarettes to e-cigarettes may reduce exposure to many harmful chemicals present in cigarettes.”
The New Zealand health ministry acknowledged that while quitting smoking may be difficult, vaping offered a way to quit cigarettes by providing nicotine with fewer of the toxins that come from burning tobacco.
To support our argument that vaping products are less harmful and should be encouraged, as opposed to cigarettes that have a higher risk profile, the South African Bureau of Standards has published guidelines on consistency, safety and quality across the vaping products market. These cover critical aspects such as manufacturing, packaging, labelling, testing protocols and the composition of e-liquids, with a key requirement being compliance with the nicotine ceiling of 35mg.
This is in line with global international best practice in developed countries such as Sweden, Canada and the UK, where vaping products must not contain a nicotine concentration that exceeds a set limit when the substance is tested using the International Organisation for Standardisation.
So our manufacturers, importers, distributors, retailers and resellers of vapour products need to familiarise themselves with the new local standards, and take the necessary steps to align their products accordingly. We are highly supportive of this.
Vapour Products Association of South Africa CEO Asanda Gcoyi had this to say when the guidelines were released: “Implementing a nicotine content ceiling will align South Africa’s vaping market with international standards to safeguard consumers from excessively high nicotine concentrations.”
Our challenge to you, Minister, is to show us how excise duties on vaping products have led to a drop in smoking rates. Where are your scientific studies that prove how higher excise duties lead to harm reduction?
Government must give consumers the choice to choose alternative means to quit smoking.
• Yeo is a former smoker who, after switching to vaping, co-founded the consumer advocacy group Vaping Saved My Life
