By Danie Chigundu
Harm reduction advocate Dr Kgosi Letlape has dispelled a belief that the adoption and coming in of non combastible products will likely affect the tobacco market for countries in Africa.
Tobacco is one of the high paying agriculture products in countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi and has alleviated a lot of small holder farmers from poverty.
In 2023 alone, Zimbabwe sold 296 057 664 kilograms of tobacco, realising about $896 698 361 and the figures are expected to grow in the next season, as more farmers turn to the golden leaf.
However, campaigns and the introduction of heat-not-burn products and e-cigarettes has been met with mixed feelings in Africa, especially from countries that are benefitting from tobacco growing and selling.
Heat-not-burn products are basically electronic devices that heat tobacco and produce an inhalable aerosol, instead of burning tobacco like traditional cigarettes.
There is a general feeling among the tobacco farmers and some government officials that the campaign for heat-not-burn products will likely encourage people to quit smoking and eventually affect the future demand for tobacco.
However, speaking to journalists recently, Dr Kgosi Letlape said the fear that people in tobacco growing countries have is a result of failing to think widely.
He said if people were thinking they should be able to see where the market is going and make the necessary adjustments.
‘’The question of dependence on tobacco growing is because we are not thinking, nearly 100% of the nicotine is produced from tobacco, there is very little synthetic nicotine out there.
‘’There are some products that will still use the tobacco leaves. Heat-not-burn products use tobacco, so if were are thinking, we could see where market is moving into and we would start talking with the producers.
‘’Why is China the biggest source of nicotine? Its because they are helping their tobacco farmers. Why are we not becoming the second largest producers of nicotine because we produce tobacco? Why are we not negotiating along those lines?
‘’Why are we not coming up with contract crop production for the companies that produce heat-not-burn products so that your tobacco will still be used for that purpose?
Although not very popular, some of the heat-not-burn devices have already entered the Zimbabwean market through the black market and are mostly found in the upmarket retail shops and flee markets, among other areas.
Zimbabwe as a country has not been vocal on the issue of e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products, unlike South Africa which is reportedly trying to put in place legislation that could throttle the use of harm reduction products among its citizens.
Meanwhile, Dr Letlape added that African countries that grow tobacco and have cigarette companies should now be thinking of converting those plants to produce heat-not-burn products such as snus which is popular in countries like Sweden.
Snus is a moist powdered tobacco that is used by placing it between the upper lip and the gum
‘’Why are we not converting our cigarette plants in countries that have cigarette plants to snus plants. Non combustibles are a range of products some of which are extremely affordable, snus is affordable, snus is environmentally friendly.
‘’There are challenges with electronic products, challenges about electronic ways etc, so you should make all products available, people should have a choice and they should be affordable so that they can be accessed.
‘’So you look at differential tax regimes for all the products and you tax the most dangerous product at the high level that you have, so that everything that is less harmful than cigarettes should have a favourable tax regime, but you see in some countries these products are taxed more than cigarettes,’’ he said.