As the new tobacco bill undergoes its second reading in the Senate, our lawmakers face a distinct choice.
They can either embrace science-based harm reduction strategies that save lives, or they can effectively condemn 2.6 million Kenyan smokers to an early grave with regressive policies that ignore evidence and punish safer alternatives.
Sadly, the bill under consideration appears to propose the latter path.
Despite overwhelming scientific evidence and real-world success stories from around the globe, the proposed legislation willfully ignores the lifeline that modern nicotine alternatives offer to smokers desperate to quit.
Instead of protecting public health, these misguided proposals would force smokers to continue using deadly combustible cigarettes while making safer options like vapes and oral pouches harder to access.
The Senate Health Committee’s report on the Tobacco Control (Amendment) Bill 2024 has yet to be tabled. Yet, its reported support for caps on nicotine levels and restrictions on flavours flies in the face of international evidence.
Research consistently shows that reasonable nicotine levels are essential to the effectiveness of alternatives, giving smokers the satisfaction they need to switch from cigarettes. Strip away the nicotine or the adult-appealing flavours, and smokers simply won’t make the switch. They’ll keep smoking. And they’ll keep dying.
Meanwhile, countries that have embraced harm reduction are seeing remarkable results.
Sweden has nearly wiped out smoking by making safer alternatives widely available, achieving the lowest smoking rates in Europe and dramatically lower rates of tobacco-related cancer and deaths. The UK’s pragmatic approach has helped millions quit smoking through vaping.
But Kenya seems determined to learn nothing from these success stories.
For years, our approach to tobacco control has been stuck in a failed cycle of prohibition, heavy taxation, and restrictions on safer alternatives to combustible cigarettes. And what has that achieved?
Smoking still kills 12,000 Kenyans annually. Two-thirds of our 2.6 million smokers want to quit, but only a tiny fraction succeed.
The truth is that alternative nicotine products are far less harmful than cigarettes because they eliminate the burning of tobacco, the primary cause of smoking-related illness.
An independent review by the Cochrane network, one of the most respected global health research bodies, found that smokers who use vapes are more than twice as likely to quit than those relying solely on willpower or outdated methods.
Yet the new tobacco bill treats lifesaving alternatives as harshly as lethal cigarettes, effectively handing a gift to the tobacco industry while punishing adults who are trying to choose safer options.
For years, I tried and failed to quit using conventional methods. Only when I discovered safer nicotine alternatives was I finally able to break free. If these alternatives had been restricted or made unaffordable, I might still be smoking today. Or worse, I might not be here at all.
Yet the very products that saved my life, and could save millions of others, are under threat because of outdated thinking and virtue-signalling policies that treat adults like criminals for choosing safer options.
If the Senate truly cares about public health, it must reject this counterproductive legislation. Instead of condemning smokers to continued use of lethal cigarettes, Kenya needs to pursue a science-led, harm reduction approach that supports smokers in their efforts to quit.
