Vape Club: local authorities and businesses can be 'agents of change' for smoking cessation
Monday, April 19, 2021 at 20:18 This appeared on Wales Online today:
According to a recent study 1 in 5 ex-smokers have stated that a ban on smoking on pub premises, including pub gardens and outdoor seating would help them quit the habit for good.
Commissioned by Vape Club, 'the UK's largest online vape shop', the Quitting Smoking for Mental Health study asked 1,000 current and ex-smokers across the UK 'what measures could be the greatest help for smoking cessation'.
Although only a small minority - 20% - suggested a complete ban on smoking on pub premises including beer gardens would help them quit it was enough to prompt the headline 'Call for smoking to be banned outdoors at pubs in UK'.
Other reported measures were:
- A smoking ban in all public places, including hospitals, parks and bus stops (26%)
- A workplace ban on smoking on the premises and cigarette breaks (19%)
No more than one in four supported any of these policies yet Vape Club director Dan Marchant declared:
“It’s clear that local authorities and businesses can be really effective agents of change when it comes to encouraging smoking cessation. With the right tools in place, simple measures to promote smoking cessation can make a huge difference to someone’s overall wellbeing, both mentally and physically – as well as reducing the ongoing strain that both smoking and smoking cessation services place on the NHS.”
The Wales Online report was published initially without a counter argument but after several emails and phone calls it was updated to read:
But the idea of an outdoor smoking ban is not universally supported. Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said:
“There is absolutely no justification for banning smoking outside pubs and thankfully there is very little support for it.
“If ex-smokers are so easily tempted to relapse that’s their problem not the publican’s.”
He added: “Demands to ban smoking outside are the last thing publicans need as they try to recover from lockdown.
“Ultimately it’s a matter for them, not government or anti-smoking campaigners, to choose a policy that best suits their business and attracts the largest number of customers.”
If Dan Marchant and Vape Club sound familiar it's because I mentioned them almost a year ago, shortly before menthol cigarettes were outlawed.
As I reported here the company conducted a survey that found that 'Almost half a million smokers will quit as a result of the menthol ban'.
Referring (I think) to the menthol ban, Marchant said:
“It’s great to hear that the steps being taken are set to have a real effect on the number of tobacco smokers in the UK, and take us closer towards the government’s 2030 UK smoking targets."
Now 'the UK's largest online vape shop' appears to be calling for further measures to 'encourage' smoking cessation.
Perhaps, instead of supporting further restrictions on smokers, businesses like Vape Club should consider the consequences of more regulations that will almost certainly be extended, in due course, to vaping.
It amazes me they just can't see it.
Reader Comments (1)
This is why smokers will never work with vapers or ever trust the faux libertarian bleatings they make from time to time about the smoker's right to be left alone without harassment. The movement has become an agent of tobacco control. It's mission is to ban smoking and force vaping on smokers and others so the vaping industry can replace big tobacco in popularity and profit.
Meanwhile, after learning that my 14 year old grand daughter and all her mates vape, I wonder where they buy their vapes from? Some of these moralistic, hand wringing, throw smokers under a bus, born again ex smokers must be selling to children somewhere so taking the moral high ground is a bit rich.
If they ban smoking they must also ban vaping too. It is clearly the only way to keep kids safe and free of nicotine addiction. And if the vapers think that the anti smoking industry won't push that line after vapers have helped them socially exclude smokers even more, then they're stupid and deserve all that is coming to them.
If libertarian vapers exist, and they really support the rights of smokers to be left alone, then maybe they could put their money where their mouth is and call for a boycott of Vape Club. Buy your vapes elsewhere. Don't support bullies.