Calls mount for e-cigarettes ban, claims that vaping bill ‘does not go far enough’

Calls are mounting for a ban on e-cigarettes after numerous deaths in the US were attributed to vaping, and after India banning the advertising, selling, importing, or of producing e-cigarettes. Control of Tobacco Products and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems Bill, the national government’s proposed pursues to regulate e-cigarettes in the same way as traditional cigarettes.

If passed into law, the bill seeks to control the advertising and of sale e-cigarettes, to offer standards for their manufacture and export and - utmost importantly for the anti-smoking lobby - to prohibit their sale to and by persons under the age of 18.

But medical expert Tony Westwood, head of the General and Community Paediatrics School of Child and Adolescent Health at the Faculty of Health Sciences at UCT, said the bill didn’t go far enough. He said young people could be easily lured into vaping addiction as e-cigarettes contained nicotine, which had been proven to permanently change the structure of young brains. Lucy Balona, head of marketing and communication at the Cancer Association of SA, said: “The safety of e-cigarettes has not yet been scientifically shown. Testing has highlighted that e-cigarettes vary widely in the amount of nicotine and other chemicals they deliver, and this is not communicated to buyers.”

Finance Minister Tito Mbowweni, proposed in his maiden Budget speech in February a tax on vaping. However the tobacco companies have come out swinging against any talk of closer regulation or even a ban.

By: Ellouise Muller