South Africa's cigarette industry can be described as "a battlefield where there is no love lost between rivals in a dog-eat-dog situation", says Professor Corné van Walbeek of the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products at the University of Cape Town.
He says there is an international treaty on tobacco control, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, of which SA is a member. The treaty encourages countries to reduce the use of tobacco, through a variety of means. Related to this framework convention is the Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which aims specifically to eliminate, or at least reduce, illicit tobacco products.