FALSE: Kenya’s Ministry of Health has not banned LYFT nicotine pouches
Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has, however, questioned the licensing LYFT by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board.
A tweet claiming that Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has banned LYFT nicotine pouches in Kenya is FALSE.
However, the post offers no reason for the alleged ban. LYFT, a product of British American Tobacco (BAT) company, is a nicotine pouch that is sold as an alternative to cigarettes for addicted smokers.
In a WhatsApp message to PesaCheck, CS Kagwe said he had written a letter to the Pharmacy and Poisons Board pointing out that they are flouting tobacco control laws that apply to the licensing of LYFT for sale in the Kenyan market.
The CS said market surveillance by the Ministry of Health shows that the product is dispensed from automatic vending machines, contrary to the law, making it available even to minors.
Mr Kagwe says he “demanded that the regulator furnish his ministry with a comprehensive report on the criteria used and circumstances leading to the registration and licensing of the product in the country”.
PesaCheck reached out to both BAT and the Pharmacy and Poisons Board, who declined to comment on the issue at this moment.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that CS Mutahi Kagwe has banned LYFT nicotine pouches from the Kenyan market and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker James Okong’o and edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Enock Nyariki.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
