Chilling truths on e-cigarette harm: SA joins globe in urging tough anti-vaping laws

Yesterday I found myself struggling to get out of a vaping cloud in a busy pedestrian walkway. I couldn't help wondering what harm the opaque steam was doing to active and passive smokers. I didn't have to wait long to learn the chilling truth. As I opened up The Wall Street Journal for my daily digest of global news, there was a story outlining the stark rise in respiratory illnesses as e-cigarettes replace their old-fashioned paper and tobacco forerunners. However, unlike the old-fashioned variety of cigarettes, which is linked to cancer and other illnesses particularly as people grow older, vaping is harming people very early on in their inhalation journey. The Wall Street Journal warns that, in the US, there is a vaping epidemic. In South Africa there have been calls to ban e-cigarettes, as India has and China seems likely to do, and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has spoken about a tax on the vaping sector to dis-incentivise the uptake of e-cigarettes. It's good news that, for a change, South Africa might be among the countries, that are ahead of the curve in trying to prevent what threatens to be a health crisis of epic proportions affecting people at their prime. – Jackie Cameron

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