Group adds voice to objection to ban on sale of tobacco products

A group calling itself Unite against the Tobacco Ban will be gathering outside the Union Buildings in Pretoria, as well as outside parliament tomorrow, to protest the ban against the selling of tobacco products.

With at least three court cases sparked by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s proclamation that the sale of tobacco would be allowed, only to be confounded by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s about-turn, anger against the decision has been steadily growing.

“There has to be a belief that the individual human being is the cornerstone of value. That all communities, all of us living together, we all exist for that person’s interest,” Duncan Napier wrote in the memorandum he hoped would reach Ramaphosa.

“It can only be that the expansion of liberties for us as individuals must be the highest goal and most enduring practice of any thinking/caring society.”

The memorandum noted people were “dying violently as a result of anxiety, increasing frustration and a slow steady build-up of anger which has reached boiling point”.

“A shopkeeper in Malmesbury was murdered because he refused to sell a customer cigarettes. There have been accounts of suicide as a result of this frustration, anger and anxiousness,” Napier said.

“We can easily divert to all the other things that carry health hazards such as obesity, but we respect the right of others to choose what they eat.”

The group is demanding for the ban on tobacco, tobacco products, e-cigarettes and related products to be lifted with immediate effect.

“If our demand is not met, we will continue in protest against this ban; this movement will grow, we will become more creative.”