South Africa’s Portfolio Committee on Health has reached an important conceptual turning point in its consideration of the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill. In June 2026, the committee formally endorsed the proposition that combustible and non-combustible nicotine products do not necessarily present identical risk profiles and that regulation should recognise relevant differences.
For Parliament, the next step is to identify the false binary, demonstrate the economic or behavioural mechanism that the binary obscures, and examine possible unintended consequences. During its clause-by-clause deliberations on 12 August 2026, the committee took that principle further when members proposed inserting a definition of a “disposable electronic delivery system.” The Bill currently defines electronic delivery systems broadly but does not distinguish between single-use and reusable devices.
A definition in legislation is not simply a dictionary exercise; it provides the architecture around which regulation is built. One proposal described a device intended for single use, supplied pre-filled and incapable of being refilled, recharged, or both. Another linked the need for such a definition directly to the use of single-use products by underage people. The committee has not accepted the definition, and no wording has yet been adopted. Members were asked to submit proposed wording for redrafting and further consideration.
For months, much of the debate around the Bill has concerned differentiation. In June, the committee said it had learnt through submissions and deliberation that tobacco and nicotine products do not all carry the same risk, with combustion presenting the highest public-health risk. The introduced Bill confirms that its existing electronic-delivery-system definitions do not make this distinction, and that this seemingly technical definitional question has substantive public-health consequences.
If Parliament accepts that cigarettes and vapes should not be regulated as though they were identical, consistency requires it to consider whether disposable and reusable vapes should also be treated differently. Disposables may have a distinct public-health, youth-access, environmental and regulatory-risk profile. That may justify Parliament’s considering a separate legal definition and proportionate regulatory treatment.
Four findings are particularly important.
First, disposable devices combine characteristics relevant to youth uptake, including convenience, concealability, intense flavour variety, colourful branding and a business model that removes the need to purchase or maintain a reusable device.
Experimental and observational research by Richard van Zyl-Smit and others, titled “Electronic cigarette usage amongst high school students in South Africa: a mixed methods approach”, found that flavours, branding and product design influence adolescent interest in vaping.
The researchers studied 25,149 learners at 52 fee-paying high schools. They found current vaping among 16.83% of respondents, rising to 29.51% among Grade 12 learners. The odds of vaping increased by grade, but not with increasing school affluence.
In addition, Notley and colleagues, in their study “Young People’s Use of Disposable Vapes: A Qualitative Study”, found that young people specifically identified price, accessibility, attractive design, colours, names and flavours as important characteristics of disposable vapes.
Second, for adults who already smoke, electronic cigarettes have accumulated credible evidence as a cessation aid. In the landmark 2019 randomised trial by Peter Hajek and colleagues, adults attending UK stop-smoking services who received e-cigarettes achieved higher one-year abstinence rates than those receiving nicotine-replacement therapy. Importantly for this debate, participants were initially supplied with a refillable second-generation device.
A later trial among smokers who had struggled to quit using conventional treatments likewise found higher validated reduction and abstinence rates with e-cigarettes than with nicotine-replacement therapy. The 2025 Cochrane review concluded that nicotine e-cigarettes increase quit rates compared with nicotine-replacement therapy.
Third, disposables create an environmental externality that reusable products do not create at the same rate. Every completed device can become a discarded battery, circuit, coil, residual-liquid reservoir, metal component and plastic casing.
Material analyses have documented significant quantities of aluminium, copper, cobalt, nickel and other materials in discarded products. Lithium-ion cells incorporated into disposable devices can also retain substantial useful cycle life.
South African research already identifies e-cigarette waste and disposal behaviour as a local policy challenge. UK authorities have also identified batteries from discarded vapes as a waste-facility fire risk. This was one consideration when the UK introduced its single-use-vape prohibition.
Parliament can therefore target the distinctive externalities associated with disposability while preserving access to reusable products for adult smokers.
Fourth, South Africa should learn from international regulation and its own history. The UK banned the sale and supply of single-use vapes from 1 June 2025 while leaving reusable devices legal. The intervention was explicitly linked to youth uptake, litter, resource waste and fires.
Belgium prohibited fully disposable e-cigarettes from 1 January 2025, while France subsequently introduced a national prohibition. Australia began by banning disposable-vape imports in January 2024 as part of wider vaping reforms.
Yet South Africa’s experience with illicit cigarettes and the Covid-era sales ban shows why enforcement capacity, substitution and black-market responses must be designed into policy rather than treated as afterthoughts. In this context, restricting legal supply did not extinguish demand; instead, it merely rearranged supply.
Subsequent research found substantial continued purchasing and adaptation during the ban, while the illicit cigarette trade has remained a major enforcement problem in South Africa.
The literature establishes a strong case for considering separate regulation of disposable vapes on youth-market, waste and engineering grounds. Disposable devices remove several barriers for a curious or experimenting young consumer: there is no need to purchase separate liquid, limited maintenance is required, there is no long-term commitment to hardware, and the product can be sold as a self-contained consumer good.
Therefore, from a public-health policy perspective, the government should consider regulating disposability as a product characteristic rather than treating all vaping devices identically.
* Sifiso Skenjana is an economist and Managing Director of ESG Analytics.
**The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Media Group.