After announcing that cigarette sales would be allowed on level 4 of the lockdown which started on 1 May, the government has since retracted their statement.<\/p>\n
The unexpected change in tobacco regulations was announced last week by Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, after the government claimed that they received over 2000 submissions from the public opposing the sale of tobacco products.<\/p>
“Besides the effects of tobacco on lungs and the way tobacco is shared, it does not allow for social distancing and encourages the spread of the virus,\u201d said Dlamini-Zuma. According to Dlamini-Zuma, this decision was also founded on the basis that refraining from smoking in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic has health benefits.<\/p>\n
Bongani Mshibe, Director of Corporate Affairs for Japan Tobacco International (JTI), \u00a0has his doubts about claims made by Minister Dlamini-Zuma. While some research bodies have stated that there is a link between Covid-19 and smoking, papers published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine<\/em> found no link between cigarette smoking and the severity of Covid-19 among cases in China.<\/p> The Norwegian Institute for Public Health states that: \u201cWe have removed smoking from the list because this in itself does not stand out as a risk factor for serious progress of Covid-19 in available data from the outbreak.\u201d The World Health Organisation (WHO) has indicated that research on the link between smoking and the disease has not yet been finalised.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in America has also reversed its comments on the connection between vaping and Covid-19, stating that although vaping releases toxic chemicals into the lungs, there is no clear link between this practice and Covid-19.<\/p>\n According to JTI, the ban on tobacco products is rooted in activism by anti-tobacco groups and not scientific evidence. They believe that this ban has also allowed for the sale of illicit tobacco to flourish, resulting in billions of tax revenue being lost.<\/p>\n \u201cSince many smokers have been looking to the illegal trade for their tobacco products, the impact on government revenues could last far longer than any temporary restrictions, as legal sellers struggle to compete with fast growing illegal supply chains that will have used this opportunity to establish new channels of distribution and win over new consumers through cigarettes that don\u2019t pay taxes to government,\u201d says Mshibe.<\/p>\n