Smoking kills around 12,000 Kenyans annually, and 2.3 million more remain hooked. Vapes and pouches offer a possible escape, but government, scientists and industry cannot agree if that escape is real or just a new trap.
Kenya is caught in an unresolved, often bitter standoff over how to curb its tobacco burden, with government, scientists, doctors, and industry deeply split on whether smokeless nicotine products such as vapes and pouches represent a genuine harm reduction tool or a fresh threat, particularly to the young.
At least 2.3 million Kenyans use tobacco cigarettes, and around 12,000 of these smokers die every year, underscoring the scale of a problem that has proven difficult to solve. Meanwhile, the popularity of smokeless alternatives is surging both globally and locally, yet rather than settling the debate, this growth has deepened mistrust between stakeholders and stalled Kenya’s Tobacco Amendment Bill.
For millions of Kenyans already dependent on tobacco cigarettes, the urge to smoke can be difficult to resist. Kenya, like many developing African countries, carries a heavy burden of chronic illness, some of it linked directly to smoking. While scientists and health practitioners agree that total cessation remains the best way to limit tobacco-related harm and death, evidence shows many users struggle to quit nicotine completely. This is why smokeless products have become so popular in Kenya and elsewhere.
Globally, an estimated 34 billion nicotine pouches were sold in 2025, up 660 per cent from 2020, according to a new report by STOP. Although the report did not offer a country-by-country breakdown, approximately 31 million nicotine pouches are used in Kenya each year, growing at around 15 per cent annually. Kenya accounts for up to 10.2 per cent of total nicotine pouch consumption across the Middle East and Africa region. For many Kenyans, nicotine, whether from combustible cigarettes or smokeless products, has become a dependence that is hard to break.
Nicotine from combustible tobacco cigarettes has been proven to cause cancer, other diseases, and death, and the economic cost of treating those affected directly and indirectly is substantial for Kenya. The risks to key demographic groups such as youths and women are considerable, adding urgency to calls for corrective measures, policies, and strategies.
Anti-tobacco crusaders insist all nicotine products are harmful, but scientists and industry players dispute
Yet even as the risks of smoking are well understood, there is little agreement on the path to reversing them. Stakeholders remain divided on tobacco harm reduction, and this division is central to the deadlock over the Tobacco Amendment Bill. There is currently bitter debate over whether nicotine pouches and vapes, despite their popularity and reported benefits in reducing tobacco harm, should be embraced within tobacco regulation or banned outright in Kenya.
Joel Gitali of the Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance insists all nicotine products are harmful, a position scientists and industry players dispute.
Gitali accuses the industry of abusing the concept of harm reduction to serve its own interests. “Industry is coming up with excuses for the acceptance of usage of smokeless products, saying the novel products are safer than combustible cigarettes,” Gitali said during the recent launch of the Nicotine Pouches Report 2025. He added: “When the industry players talk like this, policy makers look at them as people who have a solution for the people, but this is something that is not true; they are lying for the purposes of influencing policy in their favour.”
Some Kenyan medical doctors take a different view, though they too concede that complete cessation is the best outcome. They argue this is not always achievable, and that adult users should therefore be offered safer alternatives such as pouches and vapes. Health physician and epidemiologist Dr Vivienne Manyeki is among those advocating harm reduction. “The government here in Kenya tries hard to convince the public that all nicotine is the same, which we know from science is not the case,” she said.
Still, there is a genuine risk that smokeless products can be abused by young Kenyans, raising the danger of nicotine dependence taking hold at an early age. A study of more than 4.5 million people, published in the journal Nature in June, found that although vaping after quitting cigarettes is not the same as quitting nicotine entirely, e-cigarettes are relatively safer than continuing to smoke. The study noted that the risk posed by smokeless products is less elevated than that of smoking, though it also stressed that complete cessation lowers health hazards by a wide margin.
There is suspicion tobacco industry players bankroll those campaigning for harm reduction, smokeless products
So where does the mistrust between stakeholders come from? It likely stems from a failure to find common ground, a reluctance to respect scientific findings and data, and the influence of misinformation and disinformation. Whatever the cause, the mistrust is deep-rooted, with suspicions that tobacco industry players bankroll those campaigning for harm reduction and smokeless products. This mistrust is partly why Kenya’s Tobacco Amendment Bill remains delayed. Perhaps it is time Kenyan stakeholders sat down together to work through a solution for the common good of public health.
Kenya is not alone in this struggle. South Africa is also finalising new regulations for tobacco and nicotine products covering vapes, pouches, and e-cigarettes. Unlike in Kenya, however, where engagement between researchers, scientists, government, and other stakeholders has not produced a breakthrough, South African parliamentarians on the portfolio committee on health are largely agreed that smokeless products offer the best route to reducing harm from combustible cigarettes.
In Kenya, by contrast, the government believes the tobacco industry is sponsoring harm reduction campaigners to make smokeless products more fashionable, a claim Dr Manyeki insists is far from the truth. “We are coming from a medical background where we know, and with evidence, that nicotine does not cause cancers. We know that it is the process of burning tobacco in cigarettes that causes cancer,” she said.
Even where cancer treatment experts such as British oncologist Peter Harper have presented evidence on how smoking’s impact on key demographics can be minimised, sentiment in Kenya remains sceptical of harm reduction. Harper has presented in both Kenya and South Africa, though in Kenya he is widely criticised for allegedly painting too favourable a picture of smokeless nicotine products. He has nonetheless been clear about the bleak toll of smoking, which is driving up chronic diseases such as cancer, chronic lung disease, and cardiovascular disease across Kenya and the wider region. “Chronic diseases require urgent action now,” he said recently.
For Kenya, the demographic picture makes the stakes higher still. Youths under 25 currently make up around 60 per cent of the country’s population of about 59 million, and population modelling projects growth to 79 million by 2045 and 96 million by 2065. Harper warned that as Kenya’s population ages, today’s decisions on harm reduction will shape the country’s future disease burden, with African nations at greater risk of a surge in cancer cases if smoking is not checked. Smokeless products have been credited with helping drive down cigarette smoking in countries such as Sweden.
Discreet nature of flavoured vapes and pouches makes it harder for parents to monitor use
A related concern is the growing use of vapes among teenagers and those in their early twenties across Kenya and the wider region. Gitali is worried that flavoured vapes and pouches are drawing young people towards nicotine, and that the discreet nature of these products makes it harder for parents and guardians to monitor use. “The vapes and nicotine pouches are now impacting children mentally. We are now having mental health issues, suicides and general criminality,” he said.
Developed countries have responded with stricter restrictions and age verification requirements, and some regulators are considering bans on flavoured products that appeal to young users. A blanket ban, however, risks pushing sales underground into illicit markets that are harder to monitor and regulate. Regulating smokeless products separately from traditional cigarettes could allow for more targeted measures suited to each category. Dr Siboniso Dhlomo, former chairperson of South Africa’s parliamentary portfolio committee on health, said the issue needs careful handling, but is solvable through restricting sales to young people and curbing cheap, readily available single-use vapes.
Ultimately, where stakeholders disagree, science should serve as the point of convergence. It should be viewed as neutral and helpful, yet in Kenya, even those presenting the science are met with suspicion. Kenyan stakeholders must find a way to look to science for common ground and settle on a shared position, one guided by evidence and firmly in the interest of public health.
Tawanda Karombo is an African-focused journalist from Harare, Zimbabwe.
