What does the proposed tobacco bill mean for vaping in SA?
This opinion piece is part of VPASA's (Vapour Products Association of South Africa) We Are Not Tobacco (WANT) campaign, which seeks to differentiate electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) from combustible tobacco products. With South Africa moving towards the promulgation of the Control of Tobacco and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems Bill (2018), health organisations and tobacco-control...
Nigeria: Again, Nigeria Gets It Wrong On Tobacco Control Funding
Nigeria’s 2021 national budget has not disappointed pessimists. Like previous years public health was relegated to the back seat in terms of priority and funding. The breakdown of the approved budget shows that the health sector received only N547 billion (five hundred and forty-seven billion naira), representing about seven per cent of the budget’s total...
Turkey: Smoking, alcohol make COVID vaccines less effective
Smoking, drinking have negative effect on body's immune system, may reduce effectiveness of vaccines, says doctor Smoking and drinking depress the immune system and so could reduce the effectiveness of vaccines for illnesses such as the flu and coronavirus, according to a senior Turkish physician. Dr. Cevdet Erdol from the Health Sciences University in the Turkish...
Australia: Smoking causes half of Indigenous Australian deaths over 45, study shows
Researchers call for more spending and shift in health messaging after discovering figures were underestimated by more than 50%. Smoking-related illnesses cause half of all deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples over the age of 45, accounting for 10,000 premature preventable deaths in the past decade alone, a new study has found. On average,...
The Epidemic That Kills Over Eight Million People
The Government of Jamaica has drafted a Tobacco Bill, which will be introduced and debated in Parliament in the coming weeks. The bill aims at protecting Jamaicans from the harmful effects of tobacco use and exposure to smoke. We expect a robust discussion from the deliberations of a Joint Select Committee of Parliament and...
South Africa is possibly the world’s largest black market for cigarettes
Forcing smokers to buy illegally during the tobacco ban has normalised the act of selling and buying illicit brands for both retailers and consumers, costing the fiscus some R8 billion a year, a new report states. An investigation by corruption-busting group Tax Justice SA (TJSA) has found that two of every three cigarettes sold in...
Is vaping just another smokescreen from big tobacco?
Veteran investment writer Marc Hasenfuss recently wrote in the FM how British American Tobacco (BAT) believes it can generate £5bn from new category brands like Vype, Vuse, glo and Velo by 2025. Apparently, BAT is now telling consumers that the best way to avoid the health risks of smoking is not to simply quit. Rather,...
Bangladesh: Call for amending tobacco control law to ensure public health safety
Strong measures need to be taken for reducing tobacco use and turning Bangladesh into a tobacco-free country by 2040, say anti-tobacco campaigners The existing tobacco control law of the country is not adequate and it should be amended in order to save the public from the harmful effects of tobacco products, according to experts. Anti-tobacco campaigners...
