SA Health Minister declares war on smoking
- Published on 8 Aug 2013
- HR Pulse News Desk
News24 reports that health minister Aaron Motsoaledi has emphatically declared that smoking is “death” and that no one “… has been able to convince us on the contribution that tobacco did [sic] to humanity …” at the release of the SA National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES-1) by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).
This survey reports that government, though its tobacco-control policy, has successfully cut the number of adult smokers by 50% in the last 20 years. Although this is good news, exposure to tobacco smoke in the environment is cause for concern.
To mitigate this exposure, SANHANES-1 has recommended that government implement legislation which bans tobacco entirely.
This proposed legislation is in line with the view that global players are taking of illegal cigarettes.
Says Motsoaledi: "At the moment, the market is flooded with illicit cigarettes that are coming in directly through the ports. We are about to get an instrument around the world to control that. There is going to be no excuse or apology on the use of tobacco."
