By Thomas Mukhwana (Africa Uncensored), Matthew Chapman (The Examination), and Sarah Marsh (The Guardian)
Active lobbying by British American Tobacco Kenya has influenced the regulation of nicotine pouches (Velo) in the country. Through letters obtained by The Examination, an investigation by The Examination, The Guardian and Africa Uncensored reveals that health warnings were significantly downsized in 2022 after a green light was issued by the Ministry of Health under the former Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe to allow the sale of Lyft’s rebrand, Velo. In addition to that, BAT Kenya downplayed and did not disclose to the health risks associated with elements inside Velo, exposing Kenyans to cancer-causing agents.
“It weakens the body and slows the brain,” Stephen, not his real name, explains the kick Velo gives. He has been using it since 2019. He adds that he had just slipped one pouch in his mouth before speaking to me. “Lyft is what got me in the habit of using before it was banned,” Stephen recounted. But he is at a crossroads, even though he wants to stop using the drug, it’s an uphill task now as he admits that he is addicted and can’t live without it. “Without it, you feel like something is missing, it is exactly how a cigarette user feels.”
The manufacturer of Velo is the tobacco giant British American Tobacco which has controlled a lion’s share of the Kenyan cigarette market for decades. The first brand of nicotine pouches introduced to Kenyans was Lyft in 2019. This recent addition to BAT’s product portfolio stirred up a storm when nominated Member of Parliament Sabina Chege publicly called for its banning, terming it as “addictive”. “Our school-going children are buying Velo when they’re going back to school,” Chege declared in parliament as she held up a can of the substance.
After a call for order, Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha stood behind the lectern and spelt out existing regulations targeting Velo that is still in supply. She also acknowledged the toxic substances in the product. “It is prohibited to advertise or promote tobacco products using persons that can influence young people,” Nakhumicha said. But by then, BAT Kenya had advertised the product online and it was popular among the youth.
But what is Velo?
Velo is a tiny white pouch containing tobacco-free nicotine that originated from Scandinavia. It is placed between the gum and upper lip, releasing a hit similar to that of a cigarette that is then absorbed by tissues lining the mouth. BAT claims that nicotine pouches are a safer alternative to smoking. However, scientific evidence detailing the long-term effects of nicotine pouches is lacking. Meanwhile, thousands of Kenyan users continue to use the readily available product, oblivious of its effects.
Stephen isn’t aware of the substances inside nicotine pouches although he’s been using them for over two years. “I did my research but couldn’t find anything,” he said.
Velo went viral on TikTok after young Kenyans shared their experiences the first time they tried the drug. Accounts selling the drug then flooded the platform offering to deliver the product at a fee. In a video with over 250,000 views promoting the substance’s flavours, an influencer says Velo, “improves eyesight, helps with weight loss and is undetectable. It makes you feel so calm, almost lifeless.” The caption under the video contains a link code and a 50% off offer from all Velo ‘resellers’.
@warningbadman Code ni ‘warningbadman’ for 50% off certified ressellers
Unsurprisingly, data from the National Survey on Drug and Substance Abuse in Kenya 2022 by NACADA (National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse) indicates that 37% of Kenyans aged between 15 and 65 years do not know the risks associated with nicotine pouches. 58% perceive the drug to have great risks.
Popular among Gen-Zs
Even worse, the unmonitored sale of Velo leads it into the hands of underage children. Although data on nicotine pouches is hardly available, there is a rise in the use of new-generation products such as shisha and vape. A NACADA survey from 2022 states that over 7.3% of Kenyans aged between 15 and 24 years are lifetime users of tobacco.
7.3% of Kenyans aged between 15 and 24 years are lifetime users of tobacco according to a NACADA report.
Celine Awuor, chief executive officer of the International Institute of Legislative Affairs views the tactics used by BAT in the branding of Velo as a mission to entrap young users. ” Awuor said.
BAT, through a spokesperson said that it is clear that its products are for adults only and product marketing is done with adult consumers in mind. “We are clear that our products are for adults only and that they should never be used by those who are underage”.
Nicotine poses a significant risk to children, adolescents and non-smokers as it is highly addictive. It also increases the risk of stillbirth during pregnancy and impedes brain development in adolescents while also increasing the chances of addiction to other drugs later in life according to the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
BAT Breaking the Law
If you live in Kenya or have frequently interacted with Kenyan content online since 2019, you may have encountered Velo or Lyft on social media for the first time as stated above. This wasn’t incidental. BAT Kenya sponsored hashtags to advertise Lyft in 2019 and flew a famous Kenyan DJ, TV host and an influencer to a Formula One race in Abu Dhabi.
Posts shared by the influencers on Instagram all included the hashtag #LYFTKenya. This was a violation of the law. The Pharmacy and Poisons Act under which BAT had Lyft licensed in 2019 bars any advertisements of drugs that aren’t sanctioned by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board.
Subject to the provisions of this Act, no person shall advertise any drug or poison except with the written permission of the Board, Pharmacy and Poisons Act.
The Pharmacy and Poisons Board only prohibited the tobacco giant from advertising in October 2020 after the Ministry of Health flagged the product’s classification in September 2020.
In a statement, BAT said that all its promotions comply with applicable laws. “When promoting our products, whether directly or through third parties, it is a fundamental requirement that our marketing activities comply with applicable laws as well as BAT’s international marketing principles,” the statement reads.
Profits & Regulatory Setbacks
BAT’s Velo is sold in a majority of large supermarket chains and pubs across Kenya. An internal BAT presentation made in 2020 reveals that an oral nicotine product at that time made 2.4 times the amount of profit one cigarette made. In its first year in the Kenyan market, Velo and Lyft raked in Kshs 92.5 million for BAT Kenya according to NCBA Investment Bank, a performance BAT terms as “positive early momentum” in its annual report for 2022. The corporation sees a huge potential of 500% growth in market value for nicotine pouches between 2021 and 2026. This push to introduce new products into the Kenyan market comes at a time when tobacco consumption in the country is in decline.
Monthly usage of tobacco among 15 to 65-year-olds declined over the 10 years between 2007 and 2017. There was however a slight 0.2% increase between 2017 and 2022 according to a NACADA report from 2022.
But this ride has been plagued by tightened regulations and a suspension of sale issued by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board on October 8, 2020. In the suspension letter, the tobacco regulator stated that Lyft is ‘popular among the youth’ and directed that it be withdrawn from general outlets.
Before that letter of suspension, there was an earlier missive from then CS Mutahi Kagwe dated September 18, 2020, to the Pharmacy and Poisons board. The letter flagged incorrect classification of nicotine pouches under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act instead of the Tobacco Control Act which regulates all other tobacco products.
“Licensing of nicotine pouches, sold under the brand name LYFT was done contrary to the provisions of Section 25 of the Pharmacy and Poisons Act,” Former Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe argued, citing a post-market surveillance of the product. Under this classification, the product was “dispensed in automatic vending machines contrary to the law”.
Kagwe then ordered that the product be classified under the tobacco control regulations with appropriate packaging with health warnings. Letters following that suspension show BAT’s efforts to have it lifted and warnings reduced. It also exposes the Afya House’s indecision that exposed Kenyans to a product whose long-term effects still remain unknown.
Lobbying for Downsized Warnings
Subsequent letters sent by BAT and MoH show that British American Tobacco Kenya seemingly coerced Afya House into accepting downsized health warnings on Velo/Lyft cans contrary to the tobacco laws. In a letter sent months after the sale of Lyft was suspended, dated September 7, 2021, BAT reminded MoH of its Ksh 2.5 billion investment into the production of the ‘lowest risk product’ in their portfolio, nicotine pouches, and suggested a list of health warnings to be considered. Kagwe’s responses after this request allowed the product back into the market, giving BAT a stamp of approval to flood the market with smaller health warnings than is allowed in the law.
“Your positive consideration of this request will allow us to operationalize our factory for both domestic and export markets EAC and COMESA trade blocs,” Crispin Achola, Managing Director BAT Kenya wrote to Former CS Mutahi Kagwe.
Joel Gitali, the chairman of the Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance fears that this indecisiveness by the government is because of the aforementioned investment. “So the government is at a crossroads choosing between public health and whatever BAT is producing: that we need jobs, we need foreign currencies, we need to expand our economy and they are ready to do that. So that is the problem that we have and it’s really giving us nightmares,” Joel said.
BAT was allowed to supply Kenyans with downsized warnings, further diminishing any chance users would be aware of the dangers associated with the drug. Velo cans availed to the market after the June 15, 2022 approval had health warnings covering 15% of the front panel and 25% of the back panel. A huge reduction from the front and back panel requirements of 30% and 50% stipulated in the Tobacco Control Act 2007. Although the correct requirements were stated clearly by Kagwe in the same letter, BAT Kenya was given an additional year to rectify the health warnings.
The Tobacco Control Act permits the Minister of Health to adjust the warnings on packages of tobacco products. It was this allowance that permitted MoH to exercise this discretion to the benefit of BAT Kenya. The Ministry of Health did not respond to our request for comment on this matter.
Cancer-causing substances in Velo
Velo cans sold in the UK have more warnings than those sold in Kenya. While cans sold in Kenya only mention the addictive element that is nicotine on the front panel, cans sold in the UK include that and clearly state that the product is “not risk-free”. This is because Velo contains toxicants which its users are unaware of.
Research by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) confirms the presence of cancer-causing toxicants tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) in most brands of nicotine pouches also present in cigarettes and possibly obtained during conversion according to the study. Surprisingly, BAT lists two TSNAs; NNN and NNK, as some of the toxicants inside Velo on their website. “Two of these substances, NNN and NNK, have been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as Group 1 carcinogens (carcinogenic to humans),” the study by BfR reads.
BAT says that a study it funded “did not find TSNAs in VELO at quantifiable levels”. However, scientists from the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment argue that TSNAs should not be detectable in pouches. Furthermore, given that nicotine pouches are ingested, “this can then lead to the endogenous formation of carcinogenic TSNAs in the human digestive tract,” the health risk assessment study reads.
Profits Over Public Health
For British American Tobacco to have a stable business in Kenya for over a century, it had to play nice with policymakers. Evidence of heavy lobbying by BAT not only in Kenya but all over Eastern and Southern Africa is all but scarce. A research report titled Smoking out the Lies, led by the International Institute for Legislative Affairs revealed brazen lobbying campaigns done by big tobacco to impede and fight legislation aimed at regulating their business. This practice intensified after the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was introduced to reduce tobacco consumption globally in the face of rising cancer cases linked to tobacco.
Awuor sees the recent lobbying activities of BAT in Kenya as a move to protect profits at all costs. “The big manufacturing companies will go to any lengths to compromise the process by lobbying, or by buying off legislators to ensure that these strategies are not adopted and where they are adopted they are weak.”
A BAT spokesperson said that the company is committed to achieving its objectives in an honest and accountable way. “Any involvement or implication of employees or business partners in bribery or any other corrupt or criminal activities is entirely unacceptable,” the spokesperson said.
One such instance happened in 2004 when BAT and Mastermind Kenya reportedly sponsored 40 MPs’ trip to Chale Island to, ironically, discuss a tobacco control bill. The conclusion saw the legislators calling for more ‘friendly’ regulations. One legislator even fought the bill’s intention to ban children from buying cigarettes. “If those below 18 are not supposed to handle cigarettes, what happens if they are sent by their parents or relatives to buy for them, are they supposed to be given letters, identification documents of those who sent them to buy the cigarettes or what should happen?” Former Alego Usonga MP Sammy Weya is reported to have asked. The legislation was passed, but that didn’t discourage lobbyists.
A former BAT Kenya employee turned whistleblower revealed to BBC Panorama a paper trail of bribes aimed at derailing legislation in Kenya, Uganda and Burundi at the behest of BAT higher-ups. That investigation brought to light covert operations by big tobacco to interfere with a wave of legislation that was sweeping across the world. It identified lobbyists offering bribes to politicians and policymakers from Kenya who received bribes to loosen regulations against cigarettes. An investigation was launched in 2017 by the UK Serious Fraud Office but was later closed.
Almost 20 tonnes of nicotine pouches imported between October and November 2023 by BAT Kenya are being held at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport pending clearance. We could not verify why the cargo remains seized.
As it stands, BAT Kenya is awaiting regulation from the Ministry of Health. Gitali fears that BAT aims to further grow the popularity of nicotine pouches in Kenya. “Kenya is being misused. And we have given these people a very good landing ground where they can operate and do anything…we are making BAT feel that its home in Africa is Kenya,” he said, “Something that is so bad to us and the region and to the entire generation that we are subjecting to this kind of addiction. It must stop.”
Additional reporting from Edwin Okoth.
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