In Pursuit of A Smoke-free Africa

Recently, stakeholders including media professionals gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, for the Technovation 2025 Conference. The main goal of the summit was to unveil latest technologies and innovations in the tobacco industry, as well as get the buy-in of smokers and non smokers alike, since the attainment of a smoke-free society is in the interest of all, writes Alex Enumah

“Those who don’t smoke, shouldn’t start, those who smoke should quit, those who can’t quit, change.” That is the very statement that did not just set the ball rolling but reverberated all through the one-day conference aimed at securing a smoke-free society in the continent of Africa. The conference organized by the Philip Morris International (PMI) was in furtherance of the company’s Tobacco Harm Reduction Programme, started nearly two decades ago.

According to the Vice-President, Communications and Engagement, Philip Morris International (PMI), Tommaso Di Giovanni, while the ultimate goal is to help smokers quit smoking, current efforts however is to provide alternatives to those who can’t quit smoking.

Since the early 1950s, efforts have been on to eradicate cigarette smoking globally, as well as in the African continent, following findings linking the act to various terminal diseases including cancer. As part of policies at discouraging smoking, cigarette manufacturers were compelled to include the inscription ‘Smokers are liable to die young’ on the packaging of cigarettes. Besides, cigarette advertisement also goes with the pay-off, cigarette smoking is dangerous to health.

While these efforts have paid off in some developed countries especially in Europe and America, cigarette smoking continue to remain a challenge in Africa, because the continent is still lagging behind in adopting and permitting the spread of scientific smoke-free products, such as heated tobacco, e-cigarette and oral nicotine pouches as alternative to traditional cigarette.

Cigarette smoking, which started more than 5,000 years ago, the conference noted, can hardly be tackled successfully through laws and regulations without deliberate, focused and tailored behavioural change. Speakers, which included researchers, scientists and medical practitioners observed that a lot of people engage in smoking because of nicotine, which according to them is addictive. “There will never be a generation that would not make use of nicotine,” says Clement Diarga Basse, PMI’s Scientific Engagement Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa.

On his part, the Head of Scientific Engagement, Sub-Saharan Africa, PMI, Dr Buhle Binta, noted that: “A smoker keeps lighting cigarettes because of the need for nicotine,” and disclosed that smoke-free products developed by PMI “still deliver nicotine which smokers crave but they do not emit harmful tobacco smoke, the main cause of diseases like cancer, heart disease and lung disorders”.

According to the experts, nicotine although is addictive and “while it is not risk free, is not carcinogenic, that is, it does not cause cancer”. On the other hand, they identified combustible cigarettes; that is the burning of cigarettes – it is the tar and other chemicals within the tobacco that they smoke that are harmful. Dr Mercy Korir, Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-chief, Willow Health Media, while also clarifying that people smoke for nicotine, opined that most of them die from the harmful chemicals from the cigarettes that they smoke.

With availability of tested and scientific products worldwide, PMI’s Vice-President for Corporate Affairs in South & Southeast Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East & Africa, Andrea Gontkovicova, concluded that: “Nobody, really nobody, needs to smoke in the 21st century,” because “fire and burning are a problem”.

While she reeled out success stories of countries like Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, where she said pre-existing, distinct regulatory frameworks for smoke-free products facilitated rapid consumer switching, she challenged Africa to come up with her home grown and unique solutions to the problem of cigarette smoking.

“The question we need to ask ourselves is not whether and why, but how should Africa proceed further?” Gontkovicova said. She also urged African leaders not to be swayed by emotions but be guided by scientific evidence which has helped other continents to achieve a smoke-free society. “It is a huge missed opportunity for the government and consumers not to have information about smoke-free products,” she said, “demand from consumers is big, they don’t want to quit, they just want to change. They look for it even when they don’t have access”.

Pointing to studies that showed smoke-free products are alternatives that can significantly reduce exposure to harmful chemicals found in cigarette smoke when burned, Dr Binta charged African leaders to initiate policies that distinguish between cigarette and alternative products, favourable taxation, accurate public information and supportive regulations.

Giovanni, on the other hand, told the gathering that PMI, as part of efforts at eradicating harm associated with cigarette smoking, has invested over $14 billion since 2008. The investment today is responsible for the availability of smoke free products in 95 markets, “with 38 million adult smokers having adopted them, over 70% of whom have abandoned cigarettes”. According to him, smoke-free products exist to give a choice for those who don’t quit smoking.

“If people have access to cigarettes, they should have access to alternative products,” Giovanni argued.

Meanwhile, PMI’s Area Vice-President for Sub-Saharan Africa, Branislav Bibic, observed that with the level of penetration of smoke-free products across Africa, “it’s only a matter of time before cigarettes, this most harmful nicotine delivery technology, will end up in museums”.

Bibic specifically called on Africans to therefore choose “innovation over inertia” and “science over sentiment”, in order to catch up with countries that have done away with combustible cigarettes.

Indeed, there’s no arguing the fact that the smoke-free revolution is here and only a matter of time to “put cigarettes in a museum”, it is the consensus of the gathering that this can be fast tracked through effective collaboration with the media, besides government.