Health Department says it's not trying to ban smoking or vaping with revised tobacco bill

CAPE TOWN - The Health Department said it was not trying to ban smoking or vaping through a revised tobacco bill which has been before Parliament since 2022. 

Rather, it said, it was aiming to make smoking less attractive to the youth, especially since the advent of electronic smoking devices. 

For the first time, government plans to regulate vaping and prohibit their sale to children. 

But as with previous tobacco legislation, there’s been push back from the industry.

The new health committee is picking up where the sixth administration left off on the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill. 

The Health Department’s primary health deputy director-general, Jeannette Hunter, said there was a misconception about what the bill seeks to achieve. 

"It is to protect our youth, and therefore the bill speaks to issues of plain packaging to stop making this harmful product attractive to children and young people."
 
The bill will introduce further restrictions on smoking in public spaces, limit advertising, outlaw the sale of cigarettes and electronic smoking products to children, ban sales through vending machines and make it illegal to distribute such products for free.

Deputy Health Minister Joe Phaahla said that the impact of vaping products on increasing smoking prevalence could not be ignored. 

"Electronic delivery systems, the products some of them include nicotine and also other products which in themselves are also harmful."

Health committee chairperson, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, said that plans were already underway to complete the last of public hearings in the Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.