Press release
Read online here.
Labour’s all-out offensive on vaping will cause unnecessary and avoidable deaths and disease
Created: 28 November 2024
For immediate release
- The government’s all-out offensive on vaping will undo years of advances in helping smokers quit
- Restrictions on the availability and accessibility of vapes will cause avoidable deaths
- Consumers in the UK want to know who will take responsibility for the avoidable deaths and disease caused by the ill-thought-out Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which got its second reading in the House of Commons this week
LONDON, November 28, 2024: For all their talk about saving future generations from the evils of smoking, the UK government is doing a very good job of driving people back to cigarettes.
MPs spent much of Tuesday debating the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which could see onerous restrictions on vapes – the very thing that has helped millions of people in this country to quit smoking.
“Make no mistake, this is pro-smoking legislation,” according to Clive Bates, long-standing smoking and health campaigner and a voluntary public health adviser to the New Nicotine Alliance.
“The government has a range of anti-vaping measures which will worsen the smoking problem: if you raise taxes, impose bans on the most popular products, and prevent the advertising of safer alternatives to cigarettes, then you are protecting the cigarette trade and prolonging the smoking epidemic,” he said.
The government’s consultation document in October 2023 stated that “swapping to vaping is already helping 50,000 to 70,000 smokers in England quit each year – saving thousands of lives.[1]” And the impact assessment on the ban on single use vapes suggests that as many as half a million vapers might revert to smoking as a result[2].
Now, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill proposes to hide e-cigarettes away from consumers, which together with the ban on disposables (the most popular choice) and Rachel Reeves’ eye-watering taxes on vaping liquids, will only serve to compound the problem of consumer misperceptions – consumers increasingly and mistakenly believe that vaping is more harmful than smoking.
NNA Chair, Bernice Evans, a consumer herself said, “We are already hearing stories of vapers returning to smoking cigarettes because they believe that vaping must be as bad as smoking because the government seems to want to ban it. The proposals on vaping products in this bill will only convince more to do the same.”
The suggestions for banning flavours are particularly dangerous. There is comprehensive evidence that bans on vape flavours increase smoking prevalence, most notably amongst adolescents[3][4][5].
The proposal to ban vending machines for vapes and other safer nicotine alternatives to cigarettes also seems unnecessary and spiteful, considering they are only sited in hospitals and mental health facilities. It is hard to imagine a policy more effective for prolonging cigarette use.
The NNA would like to know who will take responsibility for the avoidable future death and disease which could result from these proposals.
ENDS
Issued on behalf of the New Nicotine Alliance
The NNA is a registered UK charity staffed by consumer volunteers, formed to increase understanding about the benefits of “new” risk-reduced nicotine products and a better recognition of long-term recreational use of nicotine as a powerful incentive for smoking cessation[6].
The second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill took place yesterday[7].
The threats to vaping and other reduced risk products are numerous and damaging:
- Bans on flavours
- Reducing the appeal of vapes
- Removing vapes from display
- Ban on all promotion to smokers and restrictions on where they can be used
- Ban on vending machines in hospitals and mental health facilities
- Introducing full prohibition of heated tobacco and snus
[1] Government sets out next steps to create ‘smokefree generation’ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-next-steps-to-create-smokefree-generation.
[3] The Effect of E-Cigarette Flavor Bans on Tobacco Use, DOI 10.3386/w32535, June 2024
[4] Friedman, Abigail and Liber, Alex C. and Crippen, Alyssa and Pesko, Michael, E-cigarette Flavor Restrictions’ Effects on Tobacco Product Sales (January 29, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4586701 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4586701.
[5] Hrywna M, Teotia A, Miller Lo E, Giovenco DP, Delnevo CD. The Impact of New Jersey’s 2020 E-cigarette Flavor Ban on E-cigarette, Cigarette, and Cigar Sales in New Jersey. Nicotine Tob Res. 2024 Nov 22;26(12):1700-1707. doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntae151. PMID: 38913006.
