The introduction to the government’s 294-page risk assessment of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill which has yet to become law as it passes through the various stages of parliamentary procedure states:
In the UK, 11.9% of the population smoke which equates to 6.0 million people, and in some parts of the country prevalence is over 20%. Smoking causes harm throughout people’s lives, not only for the smoker but for those around them – there is no safe level of exposure. It is a major risk factor for poor maternal and infant outcomes, significantly increasing the chance of stillbirth, and can trigger asthma in children. Smoking causes around 1 in 4 of all UK cancer deaths and is responsible for the great majority of lung cancer cases. Smoking is also a major cause of heart disease, stroke, and heart failure, and increases the risk of dementia in the elderly. Smokers lose an average of 10 years of life expectancy, or around 1 year for every 4 smoking years.
This is the problem the UK health system faces right now as current smokers impose a heavy burden on the NHS. An obvious way forward to help mitigate the worst outcomes would be to encourage as many people as possible to switch. The government should be actively involved by crafting legislation incentivising the switch by taking the lead in promoting safer nicotine products to those who smoke. If that’s too tricky, then allow companies to do the public health campaigning on the government’s behalf, for instance, by allowing the insertion of an information card in every packet of cigarettes sold. A government genuinely concerned about the current number of smokers would not impose a tax on e-liquid, would not ban single-use vapes (a valuable entry point for those considering a switch) or be considering flavour restrictions.
Instead, the proposed new law does exactly the opposite with tax levies, product bans, the potential for flavour bans, even hiding the safer products from consumers at point of sale. A particularly egregious proposal is to ban vaping vending machines which are currently only allowed in hospital and mental health facilities. Do they not realise that those suffering mental health problems have smoking rates north of 60%? Would it not be a rather good idea to help these people and those in hospital with a smoking-related condition to be given a ready option to switch away from smoking? The government’s own assessment of the ‘swop to stop’ initiative is “already helping 50,000 to 70,000 smokers in England quit each year - saving thousands of lives”. So why not build on this rather than deliberately undermine it?
Because of the torrent of mis- and dis-information out there about vaping and other safer products, many smokers are unsure about the health benefits of switching and will assume if the government is on the warpath, the news must be all bad. Result? Carry on smoking. The government’s own assessment of a ban on single use vapes indicates half a million vapers could return to smoking. This would result in a huge, avoidable, level of harm, but this doesn’t seem to phase those cheerleading from the sidelines.
Yes folks, Franz Kafka could have made a novel out of this bizarre level of disconnect. And if you think that’s not bizarre enough, there is a section on snus headed ‘Possession of snus with intent to supply’. This is straight out of the UK Misuse of Drugs Act aimed at tackling the supply of dangerous drugs like heroin and crack cocaine.
So, what’s it all about - yep, you guessed it - the kids. Alongside the vape bans we have the Smoke-Free Generation provisions where nobody born after 2009, will be able to legally buy cigarettes. No doubt, in concept, a noble intention, but unlikely to work in practice to the degree that the NHS is ‘saved’, not least because given the lead-in time for smoking-related disease to manifest, the NHS is unlikely to see any benefit at all until 2044 according to the government. Note that on current trajectory, and ongoing sensible support for people to switch to safer products, the same objective could be achieved without resorting to legislative sledgehammers and criminalisation of people seeking to avoid the use of cigarettes.
There are two other large animals with big ears in the room here. One is that those teens denied cigarettes will grow up to go into bars, pubs and clubs where there will be a ready supply of illegal cigarettes already at consumption levels exceeding 5bn cigarettes annually. No ID required here.
And as our grown-up teenager buys his illegal cigarettes in a pub, he may well also be approached by a man in a big hat wearing dark glasses whispering, “Oi, mate wanna buy some snus?”
The plan to introduce a licensing scheme for legitimate vaping businesses is good. But large animal number two, is that there are around 50,000 convenience stores in Great Britain. Dealing with under-age selling is a force of chronically short-staffed and under-funded local trading standards officers. And it looks like if a business is caught selling to under-age teenagers, they will face a hefty £200 fixed penalty fine. Scary.
Smoking in the UK among both adults and teenagers has been on the decline for years and will continue to fall. The Smoke-Free Generation idea, while sounding good as a soundbite will fail to come anywhere close to the promise (according to government ‘modelling’) of literally nobody smoking. This is just a fantasy. The data from the US have shown teen vaping falling off a cliff since 2018 as the novelty wears off among most teens who just tried vaping out of curiosity. Among those becoming more regular vapers, studies show that they might otherwise have been smoking.
At a time when some of the more ‘out there’ anti-THR elements in the USA were accusing UK Public Health England of being in the pocket of Big Tobacco, the UK stood its ground in persisting with analyses and research demonstrating the health benefits of safer nicotine products relative to smoking. The UK needs to continue to show that it can be a world leader in promoting tobacco harm reduction and not be seduced by the headline grabbing hue and cry over the teen vaping ‘epidemic’. The real epidemic is smoking. Deal with it.