Africa is at a Crossroads
On World Vape Day, the Africa Harm Reduction Alliance demanded the continent chooses ‘health over harm’, stating that it stood at a public health crossroads
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by Dave Cross
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In South Africa, on World Vape Day, the Africa Harm Reduction Alliance (AHRA) called upon governments, public health authorities and civil society across the African continent to confront the tobacco epidemic with compassion, pragmatism and science.
The Africa Harm Reduction Alliance points to data from the World Health Organization that says more than 146,000 Africans die every year from tobacco-related illnesses, with smoking rates steadily climbing in many sub-Saharan nations.
Yet, AHRA adds, instead of empowering smokers with less harmful alternatives, policymakers are burdening them with policies of prohibition and misinformation.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” the harm reduction specialists state.
“The global evidence is unequivocal: vaping is dramatically less harmful than smoking, and it is a powerful tool to help people transition away from deadly combustible cigarettes.
“Countries such as the United Kingdom and Sweden have demonstrated that encouraging smokers to switch through access to flavours, proportionate regulation and public awareness can yield extraordinary health gains.
“But Africa is being left behind. Many African countries are either considering or have implemented bans on safer alternatives like vapes, driven not by science but by fear and foreign pressure.
“These restrictions disproportionately affect people who smoke with low incomes, who are least likely to have access to stop-smoking support or expensive pharmaceutical treatments.”
Tobacco harm reduction expert Dr Delon Human told Planet of the Vapes: “This is a justice issue. When we deny access to safer alternatives, we are choosing to let vulnerable populations continue to die from entirely preventable diseases.”
The Africa Harm Reduction Alliance is urging African policymakers to adopt the RESET regulatory model, which is already saving lives worldwide:
● Risk-proportionate laws
● Ensure adult-only access through marketing restrictions
● Safety and quality benchmarks
● Environmental protections
● Tax and trace systems for product accountability
“RESET aims to highlight sound regulatory principles, to maximise the role of non-combustible nicotine alternatives as a safer alternative to cigarettes. Millions of smokers’ lives are at stake. RESET can save lives,” its website states.
“There is now a compelling body of evidence that vaping is significantly less harmful than the use of combustible cigarettes. The key differentiator for regulation should be combustion. Combustible cigarettes cause maximum harm and should be regulated accordingly.
“Non-combustible nicotine alternatives, such as electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) otherwise known as e-cigarettes or vaping products, should be regulated according to the level of risk. Risk-proportionate regulation should be used to facilitate a move down the risk continuum. Adult smokers, who cannot or will not quit, should be encouraged by risk-proportionate regulation to switch to less harmful alternatives.”
The Africa Harm Reduction Alliance concludes that the cost of inaction is counted in lives.
“Africa must act now - guided by data, not dogma.”
Photo Credit:
Photo by James Wiseman on Unsplash, resized and cropped
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
