A few decades ago a Cambridge economics professor, the late Frank Hahn, received a 40-page paper from a contributor to the Review of Economic Studies. Unimpressed by the length of the submission, Hahn asked the writer to submit a revised version of no more than three pages. The writer objected, and Hahn simply replied: “Crick and Watson described the structure of DNA in three pages. Kindly explain why your idea deserves more space.”
This week one of the most voluminous court submissions was made by co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in a case pitting the tobacco industry against the state. The crux of the dispute is whether it is justifiable for tobacco products to be banned during the lockdown induced by the coronavirus pandemic.
At the start of the initial three-week lockdown, alcohol and tobacco products were listed as prohibited items that could not be sold. To most of us this made perfect sense. Alcohol is associated with behaviour that would undermine the mission of social distancing. Once inebriated, the capacity for individuals to remain vigilant and keep themselves safe from infections is compromised.
The ban on alcohol therefore served to discourage mass gatherings of people who would have no idea of each other’s history of exposure to the virus, and would also gradually lose their sense of vigilance with every additional sip from the bottle.
The tobacco ban, on the other hand, was best explained through the history of how tobacco affects respiratory systems. And since the virus was understood to manifest through ailments associated with the respiratory system, the need to arrest a deterioration in respiratory systems was legitimate.
Far more difficult to crystallise however, was the question of whether a three-week hiatus on smoking would make a significant difference. This is due to the fact that the adverse effects of smoking gradually build up over time. For respiratory systems that are already compromised, the question would be whether the hiatus would strengthen them in a manner that made a difference to how their bodies would respond to any infection. Rather than quibbling over semantics, most citizens accepted the rules and those who had pre-existing tobacco supplies carried on consuming them.
However, as anyone could have predicted in a country where the law is regarded by far too many people as merely a set of recommendations, the black market emerged as an alternative source. The consequence of that was simply that people kept on drinking and smoking. Importantly, though, having banned mass gatherings the incidences of continued drinking and smoking were conducted in a manner that did not completely undermine the social distancing protocols.
The fact that illicit trades exist is not a consequence of the lockdown or the decision of whichever minister is responsible for regulations. Rather, if the black market thrives, that says a lot about the sense of lawlessness that prevails in the country.
Arguing that the ban ought to be lifted simply because the black market is doing it anyway doesn’t address the issue of why the black market is in a position to thrive in the first place.
This week the government decided to shift the country to level 3 and maintain the ban on tobacco trade while lifting the alcohol ban. The distinction between the two has yet to be explained. In the absence of a cogent reason why alcohol can be sold but cigarettes not, it looks irrational and undermines the government’s containment measures.
The upcoming court case will hopefully give insights into the government’s reasoning. Whatever merits exist in the implementation of the lockdown, it is still difficult to figure out how the sin of alcohol isn’t subject to the same ban. Dlamini-Zuma’s response — numbering more than 3,500 pages — is an accumulation of data that predated the coronavirus pandemic and will remain after, yet this data hadn’t forced the state to ban tobacco altogether.
Exactly how it can bolster the case for a ban at this time when riskier products are allowed to trade is the type of thing Frank Hahn would have demanded to be compressed in a few pages of rational explanations.
• Sithole (@coruscakhaya) is an accountant, academic and activist.
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