Local tobacco companies’ market share quadrupled during the country’s temporary sales ban in 2020, overtaking Big Tobacco’s pre-ban near-monopoly on South Africa’s tobacco industry. The sales ban did cause people to smoke less and prevented more than 2 000 tobacco-related deaths, but at the expense of progress made to curb illicit trade in the country by the South African Revenue Service. Hiking excise taxes would probably have had the same results and the taxman would not have lost R5.8-billion. Local tobacco companies were coining it during South Africa’s tobacco sales ban - their share of local sales quadrupled during the temporary ban put in place in 2020, shows an analysis by researchers at the University of Cape Town’s Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products, REEP.