It is with a heavy heart that me, and all the South African smokers heard the presidents address to the nation. 

While I agree with certain lockdown rules, i do not agree to the tobacco ban (neither as a business owner, neither as a smoker). There is undoubtedly a story behind the scenes of this tobacco ban, in the meantime smokers have had their rights stripped away from them and forced to buy dodgy quality tobacco at exorbitant prices.   

Lets try and stand for our smoking rights. 

Please take 5 minutes to read below: 

As a smoker or someone involved in Tobacco you should be aware that Government is trying to continue the ban on Tobacco till level one which could effectively rule out sales till 2021.

I have as a organisation as well as all all my staff done submissions to government as to object to the ongoing tobacco ban.

This is your constitutional right and I would recommend that we mobilise every individual to send through an email stating why they should lift the tobacco ban.

The more people who do this the better the chances are that they will take note of the situation and realise that if 11 million people want something then 30 politicians who are serving them should listen.

I would recommend that whatever you can do whether it is posting a message on your facebook pages requesting all you friends to do a submission, whatever the more letters around this issue the better.
Let us try and make us heard by the government for this request and the freedom of choice and our democratic right to choose to smoke or not and to make educated decisions.
Please participate this is bigger than smoking this is about freedom of your rights which have been squashed and you are not even being consulted

Reasons you could cite are:

• Freedom of choice
• Being exploited ridiculous high prices for cigarettes during lockdown
• Government loss of revenue
• The banning of a legal product
• Job losses across the whole sector from farming production wholesale logistics retail
• The perfect scenario for the illegal trade to blossom and to take control of a lucrative product which the government needs the taxes from

And plenty more that apply to you

When we moved from Lockdown 5 to 4 Government claimed there were 2000 submissions for them to retain the ban and no one sent submissions to them because or President had said that Tobacco would be available hence on the people against it objected so effectively they had 2000 against and Nil for the lifting. Don’t let this happen again. They will have people objecting again and we need to ensure we have a voice and our request for the lifting of the ban exceeds the objection by millions

When you a do the submission put the subject Line as follows:

Lifting of Tobacco Ban under Lockdown Level 3

Please send the mail to all of the email address below:

His Excellency, President Cyril Ramaphosa
presidentrsa@presidency.gov.za

COGTA:
Lockdowncomments@cogta.gov.za

Finance:
Mary.marumo@treasury.gov.za
Marlon.geswint@treasury.gov.za

People history has shown us that sitting back and doing nothing will only result in nothing happening.
We need to action and then we can expect action to occur.
Change needs action and energy and we need to provide this

Take care and be safe.