I celebrated the unbanning of tobacco products like I smoke them

At least when they kill themselves or compromise their respiratory systems, let it be from approved or legal tobacco products. Those were my sentiments on Saturday after one of the now normal, intentional family meetings with the president.

The Chabalala household witnessed the craziest jump from the couch when the president announced that he will be lifting the ban on all tobacco products.

My family looked at me perplexed. I do not consume alcohol nor do I take any tobacco products. However, the high Mandela-like fist of victory and a solid “yeeeess” shocked everyone in the house.

“Why are you excited about alcohol and tobacco when you take neither of them?” my family demanded to know. Before they could become suspicious of anything, I let them in on why this is so crucial, and not only for the economy, but for the people who consume the products.

Smoking never stopped in the village that I live in. In fact, I discovered throughout the past few months of the tobacco products ban that a lot of people smoke, and it is almost as though their breathing depends on it.

When the desperation kicked it, they started to smoke anything they could get their hands on just to puff. Do you remember how people cleaned out shelves that contained yeast and pineapples at supermarkets? Sadly, some people got really sick and others lost their lives. However, it was simply a case of desperate times, calling for desperate measures.

We all know that tobacco products are a direct threat to the functioning of our lungs.

It was also agreed upon by the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) that legal and approved tobacco products can kill, and compromise our lungs and the respiratory system. The legal products were banned because their consumption could increase the chances of one being killed by the coronavirus.

If that was the case, I think illegal, counterfeit tobacco products were posing a bigger threat to the respiratory systems of those that couldn’t live without a cigarette for a few hours or a day. Because they ended up smoking teabags, growing marijuana and smoking it.

The tobacco black market benefited a lot from the ban. I am no smoker, but from the top of my head, I could list at least ten cigarette brands. And those that I saw being smoked at funerals (the most common place where we were allowed to gather) had weird names.

There was a flip side to this ban, though. I was on a four-months break from the guys that ask for R2 for a cigarette every time they see me. And perhaps, deep down I am excited to dish out a few of them as soon as I come in contact with them.

In the case of my village and the few townships I visited, the tobacco products ban did more harm than good to the systems of the many young people who smoke. Yes, smoking is a choice, but to find your right to buy something that feeds your habits taken away like that must have been hard.

Now people can compromise their respiratory systems with legal products, and that for me is better than the home-made, untested concoctions they were smoking. As every cigarettes box says, “Smoking damages your lungs,” I hope we smoke responsibly. And I think we undermine tobacco products consumers – they might be more responsible than alcohol consumers.

Kabelo Chabalala.

• Kabelo Chabalala is the founder and chairperson of the Young Men Movement (YMM), an organisation that focuses on the reconstruction of the socialisation of boys to create a new cohort of men. Email, kabelo03chabalala@gmail.com; Twitter, @KabeloJay; Facebook, Kabelo Chabalala

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