Free Market Foundation (FMF) CEO Leon Louw believes that the cigarette ban in South Africa may last until 2021.<\/p>\n
“Smokers should be prepared to pay R20 for a single cigarette or R200 a box for many months to come,” said Louw.<\/p>\n
“The pandemic will be with us in some form until next year, so don’t expect tobacco sales to be unbanned before 2021.”<\/p>\n
Louw told MyBroadband that cooperative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) that the sale of tobacco and alcohol should remain banned until South Africa reaches level 1 of lockdown.<\/p>\n
Dlamini-Zuma’s argument contests a reported agreement that the ban on cigarette sales would be lifted under level 3.<\/p>\n
According to Louw, the “rushed and ill-conceived” ban on cigarette sales has caused a variety of unintended consequences.<\/p>\n
“As at the end of April, Treasury has lost in excess R300 million in excise duty from tobacco products, and the illicit trade has been handed the market on a plate and is charging extortionate prices,” said Louw.<\/p>\n
Louw cited information from a UCT research unit which found that the vast majority of South African smokers have continued to purchase cigarettes under lockdown.<\/p>\n
They have switched from purchasing cigarettes from legal vendors to the illegal market, and are sometimes travelling long distances to do this, the research states.<\/p>\n
“People have not stopped smoking. Government has turned 11 million smokers into criminals overnight,” said Louw.<\/p>\n
He argued that the government has yet to provide any evidence that smoking has any impact on COVID-19.<\/p>\n
“Where is the evidence that tobacco products increase the spread of COVID-19, or why tobacco products are singled out when other goods are shared such as food, drinks or communal toilets?” Louw asked.<\/p>\n
“Why aren’t they banning sugar since studies of Chinese COVID-19 patients shows that the death rate was three times higher in patients with diabetes?”<\/p>\n
Louw added that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has not released any evidence or data on the relationship between smoking and COVID-19, and has not taken a position on whether tobacco sales should be banned.<\/p>\n
He said South Africa is one of only three countries in the world to have banned cigarettes during the COVID-19 pandemic – along with Botswana and India.<\/p>\n
“Even if certain studies attempt to make a connection between smoking and COVID-19, why haven’t other countries followed their advice and banned tobacco?” asked Louw.<\/p>\n
Louw said that government has also ignored the mental health element of withdrawal.<\/p>\n
“Nicotine withdrawal has been forced upon millions of smokers, with no regard for their mental health,” he argued.<\/p>\n
“Government is accountable to the people \u2013 the day of reckoning will arrive. Public goodwill and support generated in the first three weeks of lockdown are disappearing fast.”<\/p>\n
“They better have a very good explanation,” Louw added.<\/p>\n
Free Market Foundation (FMF) CEO Leon Louw believes that the cigarette ban in South Africa may last until 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341039,"featured_media":350424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40380],"tags":[16896,13619],"class_list":["post-353169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-fmf","tag-leon-louw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":353185,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353169\/revisions\/353185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}