Delays to the Senate’s tobacco control amendment bill are stoking regulatory uncertainty around smokeless nicotine products and are fuelling misinformation about their ability to reduce tobacco-related harm as the world marked World Vape Day on May 30, 2025.

The 2024 Tobacco Control (Amendment) Bill was first published in July 2024 but has faced substantial delays.

The bill will create a legal framework for smokeless nicotine products, which are currently unregulated in Kenya.

Vapes have been in existence for 20 years, yet we still don’t have basic laws in Kenya to prevent them from being sold to under-18s.

While there are issues with the Bill, we must move forward from the current stasis and begin progressing a regulatory structure for alternative nicotine products.

In the year since the bill was first published, Kenyans have faced a growing barrage of misinformation about the safety of nicotine products relative to cigarettes.

That misinformation is preventing smokers from switching to reduced-risk products, which could save their lives.

Smokers deserve clarity about the relative risks of smokeless nicotine products compared with smoking and their ability to reduce tobacco-related diseases.

This can only be achieved if the bill is accelerated.

Other countries that have introduced balanced regulatory systems for nicotine alternatives have seen their smoking rates plummet.

Vaping is credited with helping three million smokers quit in England in the past five years.

According to a study of more than 29,000 smokers published by the world-renowned Cochrane, vapes are a better tool for quitting cigarettes long-term than the use of patches, gum, lozenges or other traditional nicotine replacement therapies, which are on the WHO’s list of essential medicines.

Some 12,000 people die every year in Kenya from tobacco-related deaths.

We need to urgently prioritise helping smokers who are struggling to quit to get off cigarettes once and for all. International evidence shows that nicotine products like vapes are the most effective tools to help smokers quit.

Saving lives must be the priority.

Other countries that have embraced nicotine alternatives, such as Sweden and New Zealand, now have some of the lowest smoking rates in the world.

Both countries have created regulatory structures that ensure smokeless nicotine products remain accessible, acceptable and affordable to those who are struggling to quit tobacco.

There shouldn’t be any need for further debate.

What Kenya requires right now is balanced regulation of nicotine products that prevents under-18s access, while ensuring adult smokers have the best tools to help them quit their deadly habit.

The writer is the Secretary General of the Harm Reduction Society, a Consultant Paediatrician, Epidemiologist and Researcher