WATCH: Why is the tobacco industry comparing vapes to HIV treatment?

Public health experts agree with the vaping lobby that smokers need more help to quit smoking. 

They disagree, however, with the industry’s argument that imposing a sin tax on vapour products will lead down a similar path as the state-sanctioned Aids denialism of former president Thabo Mbeki’s administration. 

A third of a million people died between 1999 and 2008 because the government refused to buy HIV treatment for state facilities based on the unfounded belief that Aids is not caused by HIV, and that treatment was poisonous.