EDITORIAL: We are looking in the wrong direction

A National Council committee's call for a complete ban on the importation of hubbly bubbly, vaping products and disposable and refillable electronic cigarettes is well-intentioned. There is a legitimate concern about the growing accessibility of nicotine products to children and young people.

But good intentions do not necessarily make good policy. The committee appears to have identified a problem, but perhaps not the biggest one.

Alcohol remains the elephant freely roaming Namibia's substance-abuse room. It is more deeply entrenched, more widely accessible and, judging from the incidents reported every week, far more devastating to our communities.

Alcohol is implicated in violent crime, road crashes, gender-based violence, teenage pregnancies, school dropouts and countless family breakdowns. No one ever woke up missing a tooth because they smoked hubbly the previous night.

Yet, this is not to suggest that hubbly bubbly and vaping are harmless. They are not. Nicotine addiction is a serious concern, particularly among children whose developing brains are vulnerable to addiction.

But we must retain a sense of proportion. The committee's recommendations create an uncomfortable question. If the importation of vaping products warrants a complete ban because they threaten young people, why does alcohol not attract an equally forceful response? And if nicotine is the central concern, why is there no comparable urgency around conventional cigarettes, which have been scientifically established as highly addictive and deadly?

We cannot claim to be waging a war on substance abuse while choosing our battles according to which substances are currently fashionable.

Perhaps instead of rushing towards outright bans, Namibia should strengthen age restrictions, enforcement at points of sale, school-based prevention programmes, parental awareness and controls on the marketing and distribution of products attractive to minors.

And where evidence demonstrates that prohibition is necessary, government should not hesitate to act.