SA’s advertising watchdog has urged parliament to soften the draft tobacco bill’s restrictions on advertising vapes and ensure industry players are bound by its decisions.
The Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) is an independent, self-regulatory association that is binding on its members but has limited impact on companies that do not subscribe to its code of practice.
“We are asking that the legislation ... binds any actor in this space to the jurisdiction of the advertising regulatory board. There are always going to be rogue players who are not prepared to listen to the (ARB) unless they’re made to” CEO Gail Schimmel said on Wednesday.
Parliament’s portfolio committee on health is holding public hearings on the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill, which proposes tightening restrictions on tobacco products and, for the first time, regulating e-cigarettes and other new generation products. Companies that sell new-generation tobacco products and vapes are pressing for differentiated regulation that would see fewer restrictions imposed on their goods.
Current tobacco legislation bans almost all tobacco advertising but is silent on tobacco-free nicotine products such as vapes. The draft bill proposes imposing the same advertising restrictions on all products, including cigarettes, nicotine pouches and vapes.
The ARB, which counts the Vaping Products Association of SA (VPASA) among its members said it supported the bill’s ban on advertising traditional tobacco products, but extending that approach to vapes would prevent companies communicating the health benefits of switching to their products.
“The truth of the matter is vape products ... do seem to offer significant health benefits over tobacco. We cannot parcel them with traditional products,” Schimmel said.
The ARB proposed amendments to section 3 of the bill that, in addition to recognising its jurisdiction over industry players, would set out the minimum requirements for a self-regulatory advertising code and include a mechanism for escalating complaints to the health department if an errant company failed to comply.
The ARB had collaborated with VPASA to draft a code of conduct for vapour products, said Schimmel. The code includes rules such as not marketing to people under the age of 18 and not placing advertisements within 100-metres of schools, sports facilities or other organisations where the majority of attendees are children.
MPs also heard from Kurt Yeo, founder of Vaping Saved My Life, an organisation that promotes vapes as an alternative to cigarettes and is pressing for the bill to differentiate between different kinds of nicotine products.
He drew attention to the limited availability of smoking cessation support programmes in SA, arguing smokers needed ready access to less harmful alternatives such as vapes and criticised the bill’s prohibition on flavours, which he said were vital to mask the taste of nicotine.
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