Vape News | Smoking In The UK Could Be Stubbed Out By 2030 | Call To Stop Celebrities Promoting E-Cigarettes + More

Vape News Headlines

UK Smoking Stubbed Out For Good – Ban Celebs From Promoting Vaping – India Should Rethink Vape Ban – UK Vape Sales Growth Forecast – Ban JUUL From Social Media!

Plans Leaked On The UK Stubbing Out Smoking For Good

The UK Government reckons it can completely get rid of smoking in a little over a decade.

The bold claims are made in a green paper that was leaked to the Daily Mail. However, the plans could be scrapped if Boris Johnson is made Prime Minister.

One of Boris’ campaign pledges is to scrap so-called ‘sin taxes’ including those on sugary drinks, and insiders think this would include the Government’s stop smoking drive.

They want to see a levy or tax placed over and above the current excise duties on lit tobacco and force Big Tobacco companies to pay it directly to the Government. This, say the authors would raise over a £1Billion within a decade and the money used to fund stop smoking services.

They also want to see stop smoking advice cards placed in all cigarette packets – something Phillip Morris Inc suggested last year.

All sounds good on paper – however, smoking rates are tumbling here in the UK thanks to e-cigarettes and as we know stop smoking clinics are seeing a steep downturn in use.

The plan states:

The gains in tobacco control have been hard-won, and there’s still much to do.

For the 15% of adults who are not yet smoke-free, smoking is the leading cause of ill-health and early death, and a major cause of inequalities.

That’s why the Government wants to finish the job.

Finish the job we vapers have started I think they mean lol.

Let’s face it the UK has been extremely welcoming towards e-cigarettes as a quit tool, but let’s not forget before they got involved many of the 3.5 million vapers in the country had stopped smoking using e-cigs off their own backs.

The green paper has been welcomed by pressure group Action on Smoking and Health [ASH] with Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, saying:

Matt Hancock’s priority as health secretary has been prevention and his green paper proposals were widely expected to go out for consultation before summer recess.

Hancock needs to hold his nerve, stick to his principles and not allow his flagship policy to be derailed.

As to if smoking will be eradicated completely by 2030?

I doubt it, but I do expect to see smokers in their droves switching to e-cigarettes over the next few years IF the government continues to support vaping and relaxes some of the sillier rules and regulations.

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Call To Stop Using Celebs To Promote E-Cigs

The anti-vape brigade makes for strange bedfellows, to say the least.

We’re all aware of those fanatics – the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, but they’ve now been joined by the Allen Carr’s Easy Way Stop smoking programme.

Now imagine my shock!

The latter has of course been a worldwide sensation in helping smokers quit – so I’m guessing as e-cigarettes take over, that particular programme might be I dunno be feeling a little threatened?

Any way both groups have joined forces in a call to ban the use of celebrities to promote all things vape.

I’ve written before about the Advertising Standards Authority and its investigation into such claims. It’s still ‘investigating’ Vype’s use of Lilly Allen in a number of photoshoots.

To be honest part of my job is scouring social media for vape related posts and I rarely if ever spot a celebrity – though these days I doubt I’d recognize one lol.

However, that hasn’t stopped the outrage from Allen Carr’s team with spokesman John Dicey saying:

Social media is like the Wild West in terms of vaping companies getting away with targeting kids.

Type ‘vaping’ or ‘vape juice’ into YouTube or Instagram and you’ll soon find glamorous girls and boys demonstrating how to do it and promoting whatever brand they’re sponsored by.

Caroline Renzulli, from the CTFK was equally indignant:

Tobacco companies like BAT use social media to promote their products because they think they can get away with it and they know it reaches young people.

Simon Cleverly, spokesman for British American Tobacco (BAT) said:

We have strict controls in place to ensure our partnerships are appropriate and targeted at adults.

I wouldn’t bother mate, no matter what you say this growing band of the ignorant indignant’ don’t and won’t listen.

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Is Proposed Indian Vape Ban ‘Population Control?’

As India lurches towards a total ban on all things vape, e-cig companies are now calling on the Government for a rethink.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago the country was about to classify all things e-cig as drugs allowing them to be banned outright.

Last week the Cancer Foundation of the country stepped in urging the Government to stop the ban and have now been joined by a leading vape industry group.

Jay Mehta, President of the Indian Vaping Industry Association, fears the ban would simply drive vapers back to smoking. Given India is home to 12% of the worlds smoking population and registers 1million tobacco-related deaths per year, this would be a health disaster.

He said:

Effectively, people are being asked to give up a healthier life and go back to smoking cancer sticks.

Is this a measure of population control, one has to wonder?

Indeed.

Even those in the Indian tobacco industry think the ban is sinister with Danny Carroll, brand ambassador of Gurkha Cigars saying:

Classifying electric cigarettes as a narcotic is most likely driven by the government’s desire to protect tax revenue collected on tobacco.

I have not heard of any scientific research that concludes that the nicotine in electronic cigarettes is any more or less harmful than nicotine in tobacco

Sadly, and with half of India’s states now banning vaping completely, the ban looks very likely to pass into law countrywide.

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Huge Growth Forecast For UK Vape Scene

Business insiders say by 2024 the UK vape industry will be worth a staggering $6.5bn!

Little wonder Big Tobacco companies are muscling in to grab a piece of that pie!

As it stands now the biggest sellers of e-cigarettes here in the UK are indeed Big Tobacco with Imperial Brands plc, British American Tobacco plc, Japan Tobacco Inc., and Philip Morris International Inc all fighting for the top spot.

Investors reckon the shift will now be towards targeting female smokers in a bid to get them to move to vaping which is currently dominated by males.

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‘Experts’ Say Ban JUUL ‘Promotion’ On Social Media

Another day and another call to ban all things vape off social media!

This time it’s a bunch of researchers from various US-based universities who studied thousands of posts on Instagram that had tagged JUUL.

The ‘scientists’ studied 15,000 posts and found the vast majority “focused on product promotion and nicotine and addiction that included youth culture and lifestyle appeals.”

Pretty sure ‘lifestyle appeal’ for instance might just mean vaping is a healthier option to smoking maybe?

Anyway, around a third of the posts linked to online vape shops and to the JUUL website itself.

Now I’m guessing the majority of those were influencers and affiliates adding their code to the link in order to make a few quid.

I’ll also hazard a guess that pretty much all links to online vape shops from pretty photos of everything from e-liquid and tanks to cotton and mods carry an affiliate code – it’s about making money for goodness sake! But hey to get their 15minutes of fame I guess they need to add the JUUL factor…

Senior researcher Elizabeth Hair said none of the posts were from JUUL directly and most had some kind of cartoon imagery or references to JUUL in a ‘fun way’ – because as we know only kids like to have fun.

The research looked at Insta posts between March and May last year and Lindsay Andrews spokesman for JUUL said in that date range JUUL had only posted 8:

Six of these were testimonials from former adult smokers, one was a letter from our CEO concerning youth prevention, and the last was a photo of a Juul engineer.

During the time period of this study, third-party users generated well over 99.9% of the Instagram content related to Juul products.

And in what is fast becoming a mantra she added:

We don’t want youth using our product.

Our product was designed to help adult smokers who want a true alternative to combustible cigarettes.

Based on the results the scientists conclude:

Findings reveal a proliferation of JUUL-related content on Instagram, which focused on product promotion and nicotine and addiction that included youth culture and lifestyle appeals.

Regulatory actions should focus on restricting promotional efforts for e-cigarette products, particularly on social media platforms where young people are a primary audience.

*sighs*

More vaping news on Sunday!