Business Reporter

Tobacco continues to be the lifeblood for the local economy and livelihoods.

By last week, US$421 million had been grossed from the sale of 124 million kilogrammes of the cash crop, according to regulator, Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB).

This, however, represents a decline from US$472 million that had been realised by the same period a year earlier.

Forecasts for the 2020/2021 marketing season are encouraging.

Farmers had planted 18 192 hectares as at October 29, compared to 15 818ha in the comparable period a year ago.

But tied to increased tobacco production are growing global health concerns.

“The global public health crisis of smoking is ongoing and deadly. 1,1 billion people smoke worldwide, a figure that has remained unchanged for two decades despite billions spent by governments and the World Health Organisation (WHO) on tobacco control. 80 percent of the world’s smokers live in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), and eight million people die due to smoking-related disease every year.

“The WHO estimates that one billion people will die of smoking-related diseases by 2100,” said a latest report launched by the UK-based public health agency, Knowledge Action Change (KAC), last week.

The report, “Burning Issues: Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction 2020”, claims that the death toll from smoking-related diseases can be markedly reduced by adopting alternative products such as pasteurised oral snus (moist power smokeless tobacco), e-cigarettes, vapours and heated tobacco products (HTPs) that present substantial harm reduction.

It is believed that tobacco harm reduction (THR) products provide a feasible solution for people who want to switch from smoking to alternative products that can satisfy their nicotine craving for less the risk.

For countries such as Zimbabwe, it could provide a lifeline for the tobacco sector while at the same time helping to markedly reduce the health risks associated with consumption.

“People smoke for the nicotine, but it is the other components of cigarette smoke that do most of the damage. . . Cigarettes are the most dangerous form of nicotine delivery, not least because they involve the burning of plant-based material . . .

“Alternative nicotine products can present a substantial reduction in harm reduction,” said neuropsychopharmacologist Prof David Nutt, the chair of Drug Science, a non-profit organisation that provides evidence-based information on drugs.

He was speaking at a conference stream co-hosted by KAC in London and Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) in Malawi last week.

KAC says the prevalence of safer nicotine products (SNPs) presently stands at 98 million, of which 68 million are vapers.

Twenty million are heated tobacco products and 10 million are smokeless or snus users.

The highest number of vapers reportedly live in the United States, China, the Russian Federation, United Kingdom, France, Japan, Germany and Mexico.

Japan has the highest number of HTP users while Sweden and the US have the highest number of snus consumers.

Vapers are considered to be 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes.

However, there are only nine SNP users for every 100 smokers globally, mainly in high-income countries.

Resistance

But the tobacco harm reduction products are not readily accepted by some global health bodies such as the WHO and policymakers as they are perceived to be ostensibly promoting tobacco consumption.

Some experts opine that instead of waging a war on smoking these bodies are actually waging a war on nicotine, which is less harmful.

Some of the proposals made by WHO through the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) were regarded as pointedly meant to eliminate tobacco production.

In 2000, the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA), a lobby group that represents the interests of local producers, wrote a letter objecting to some of the proposals of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

“We are concerned at the wide and far-reaching prescriptive nature of the proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

“This, we contend, may be designed to satisfy an earlier stated objective of the Working Group to put an end to tobacco use in any form. The WHO must respect the legal rights of tobacco growers to produce tobacco, which is not an illicit drug,” it said then.

Tobacco Harm Reduction Malawi project director Mr Ngoma Chimwemwe said there was a “mistaken belief” that adoption of THR measures could result in economic difficulties.

“Many low- and middle-income countries are not sufficiently resourced to implement and adopt THR. The situation is further complicated in countries where the economy is reliant on income from tobacco cultivation because there is a mistaken belief that adopting measures will result in economic hardships. . .