With all participants managing to quit smoking cigarettes, the social experiment proved that vaping has the potential to be a viable tool for smoking cessation. What all this demonstrates to us as VSML, is that vaping is not the same as traditional smoking and shouldn’t be treated the same in policies and legislation.
There is a need to structure this debate in a way that speaks to the right parts. Preventing youth vaping and smoking remains a key and noble objective. It would be highly unfortunate and regrettable, though that, in attempting to reach this objective, we relinquish efforts to assist the over 8 million smokers in South Africa to quit smoking. It would be morally repugnant to penalise smokers in furtherance of our vendetta against the tobacco industry.
The World Health Organization (WHO) updates its Model List of Necessary Medications (EML), a list of medicines deemed essential by WHO experts. This list gets updated every two years.
As South Africa prepares to participate in the COP9, we ask for an earnest consideration of the scientific evidence supporting vaping as a harm reduced alternative to smoking. We also ask that the voices of ENDS users who have successfully moved away from smoking with the aid of these products be taken seriously.
Johannesburg, South Africa, 30 June 2021 – Today, Vaping Saved My Life is joining a global movement coordinated by the World Vapers’ Alliance to Back… Read More »Vaping Saved My Life joins global movement to back vaping and beat smoking
A response to an OP-ED:
“Children must be protected from the glamorised promotion of e-cigarettes”
featured on the Daily Maverick, 1 December 2020. The OP-ED was penned by Dr Sharon Nyatsanza (project and communications manager at the National Council Against Smoking) and Dr Catherine Egbe (Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Research Unit at the South African Medical Research Council)
