Restricting Tobacco Causes Crime
South Africa’s government must recognise that its war on tobacco is not a public health policy but a self-inflicted wound.
South Africa’s war on smokers has become a war on taxpayers, law enforcement, and the rule of law itself. By taxing tobacco into oblivion and outlawing its sale, the state has not curbed addiction. It has fed organised crime.
The government’s insistence on restricting the rights of smokers is not just harming smokers. It has cost the fiscus potential billions in lost tax revenue, as well as enabling criminal syndicates to flourish.
While the ludicrous 2020 lockdown ban may have lasted only 5 months, it resulted in a permanent shift in the tobacco industry. Combined with overtaxed cigarettes, the lockdown gave consumers a taste of cheap, illicit tobacco. This has resulted in R72.2 billion in lost tax revenue for the period of 2020-2022, and over 35 991 job losses. What was meant to be a public health measure became a state-sponsored subsidy for crime.
As a direct result of the five-month ban and its continued effects, the illicit market grew from an approximate 39% share of the market in 2019, to 62.9% as of 2022. The share now is likely closer to 70%.
90% of smokers continued to buy cigarettes, giving money to criminal syndicates and proving the prohibition and any attempt to ban cigarettes as ultimately fruitless. Even after the ban was lifted, these illegal brands continued to be the favourites of smokers, as they did not have to pay excise.
Government has taxed tobacco far beyond the Laffer threshold, diminishing the overall tax now gained from tobacco. If taxes were kept reasonable, then consumers would have stuck with legal brands that pay tax. But now, they are forced to purchase illicit, untaxed goods to feed their habit.
The lockdown ban was so effective in pushing consumers into the hands of criminal syndicates that these criminals had to up their game. They had to adopt more advanced money laundering techniques, and with new revenues became much more capable of expanding into other illicit industries – much less innocent than untaxed cigarettes.
Every Rand spent on illegal cigarettes is not just less money for the fiscus. It’s a Rand that could be used to arm a gang with illegal weapons. A Rand that could be used to smuggle a person, not a cig. A Rand that could be used to bribe our officials, perverting our democracy into becoming more of a mafia state.
Then Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was the mastermind behind the 2020 ban. In later court cases challenging the ban, her legal team acknowledged that she knew that criminals would profit from the ban. They called it an “unfortunate reality.”
Allegations that Dlamini-Zuma is associated with Adriano Mazzotti, a suspected cigarette smuggler, just adds to the possibility that corrupt government officials are driving anti-tobacco policies to enrich themselves.
The war on smokers didn’t stop after the lockdown ban was lifted. The proposed Tobacco Bill, which ended its consultation period in parliament in September 2025, aims to drastically reduce smoking through a cocktail of ill-thought-out regulations, with the most worrying of all being that the Minister of Health will be equipped to pass new regulations without parliamentary oversight.
The Tobacco Bill will doubtlessly benefit criminals and push more law-abiding smokers into the arms of the illicit cigarette trade. That means less tax revenue, a shrunken legitimate industry, and the continued dismantling of law and order.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t like cigarettes. It doesn’t matter if you think there is a public health crisis surrounding cigarettes. Like alcohol prohibition in the United States caused the rise of the Mafia, cigarette prohibition and restrictions has led to the rise of criminal syndicates that will only escalate in power and violence.
If we want to increase tax revenue which can be spent on infrastructure, education, law enforcement and healthcare, and if we want law and order to prevail, we need to end this fruitless crusade against legal cigarettes and equip the legitimate industry with the ability to counter the smugglers – by providing policy certainty and lower taxes.
South Africa’s government must recognise that its war on tobacco is not a public health policy but a self-inflicted wound. By driving consumers into the black market, it has enriched criminals, impoverished the fiscus, and undermined respect for the law.
The only way to reverse this damage is to abandon prohibitionist thinking and embrace a rational policy framework that encourages legal trade, moderate taxation, and transparent regulation. A free and lawful market is the best weapon against organised crime, not another layer of bans and bureaucratic control.
Nicholas Woode-Smith is the managing editor of the Rational Standard and a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation. He writes in his personal capacity.