Tobacco bill won’t curb smoking in the least

Like it or not, smokers will smoke; be it cigarettes, cigars, weed, e-cigs or vapes: someone who wants to smoke will find a way to smoke.

Proposed legislation such as the Control of Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill (the Tobacco Bill) will accomplish little to improve public health, or to curb smoking.

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Rather, these in vain attempts to control the habits of otherwise law-abiding South Africans will accomplish little other than potentially devastating the economy.

The Bill makes a host of grandiose proposals, including imposing stricter standards on processing, manufacturing and importing tobacco and e-cig related products.

It also seeks to regulate and criminalise tobacco and e-cig advertising, standardise packaging to remove brand diversity, prohibit smoking in all indoor public places, ban cigarette vending machines and ban display of tobacco and e-cig products at point of sale.

These arbitrary dictates will not curb smokers. Smoking has been a human pastime for millenniums and will likely continue to be so.

People will continue to buy and smoke cigarettes.

What will change is how consumers choose to smoke and where they purchase their cigarettes.

Without the ability to market their products or differentiate themselves from the competition, tobacco companies lose a crucial market mechanism to attract new customers.

Established smokers are loyal to brands, but new smokers and cost-conscious smokers will have no easy way of comparing products or even prices.

You may not care about tobacco companies’ marketing departments, but the Bill has also threatened an estimated 2.2 million informal traders who rely on cigarette sales to feed to their families.

A spaza shop or hawker stall can’t afford to not display cigarettes. Where are they supposed to keep the cigs?

The Bill is fraught with apparent good intentions hiding a mish-mash of ill-conceived meddling.

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According to Statista, the legal cigarette trade generated an estimated R268 billion in 2024 so far.

This has been severely stifled by the illicit cigarette trade, which has boomed as a result of mounting regulations and taxes against tobacco.

An estimated R119 billion of VAT has been lost between 2002 and 2022 due to illicit cigarettes.

This money could have been used to fund much needed government services, including improving health care.

The Tobacco Bill should be scrapped. Rather, the government should be working to enable tobacco and e-cig companies to conduct their businesses efficiently and safely.

South Africa could ultimately benefit from the unchangeable health decisions of many of our citizens.

We just need to stop trying to meddle and let people make their own decisions about their health.

• Woode-Smith is a political analyst, economic historian, author and an associate of the Free Market Foundation