Vaping - tobacco control freaks demand “even greater vigilance”
Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 11:19 Further to yesterday's post about raising the age of sale of tobacco to 21, the Mirror’s ‘exclusive’ report also mentioned a possible ban on 'flavoured e-cigarettes'.
Apparently this is another policy being 'looked at by health officials' although it's hard to believe the Government would be so stupid because the message it would send out could be enormously damaging to the general public's view of vaping.
According to the Mirror, however, possible policies include:
A clampdown on flavoured vaping products - such as gummy bear, strawberry, mango and mint flavoured e-cigarettes ...
The Government could also restrict advertising of flavoured vaping products, insiders say.
As I wrote here, ASH's fingerprints were all over the Mirror's report so I guess this is further evidence they are lobbying for additional restrictions on vaping too.
Further evidence? Read Delivering a Smokefree 2030: The All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health recommendations for the Tobacco Control Plan 2021.
As we know the APPG on Smoking and Health is run by ASH. With that in mind, this is what the APPG/ASH had to say about e-cigarettes:
Data from the ASH YouGov surveys on adults, and young people, show that standardising the packaging of e-cigarettes and refills (cartridges or e-liquid products) reduces the appeal of vaping to young people, particularly younger children, while having little impact on adult smokers’ interest in using the products to quit smoking.
In other words, the APPG/ASH supports standardised packaging of e-cigarettes and refills.
But there’s more:
Restricting packaging design to prohibit cartoon characters and use of child-friendly descriptors such as sweet names would be a precautionary measure which would not undermine adult product use.
Despite insisting that one of the Government's goals must be to incentivise and encourage smokers to switch to vaping, the APPG/ASH report notes that:
The counterbalance to incentivising and encouraging smokers to switch to vaping must be even greater vigilance [my emphasis] in discouraging uptake by young people of e-cigarettes and other alternative nicotine products to ensure that the current low levels of use are sustained, and smoking rates continue to decline among young people.
To achieve this the APPG/ASH urges the Government to:
Prohibit packaging and labelling of e-cigarettes and e-liquids which have been demonstrated to be appealing to children, for example:
- product names or descriptors such as sweet names (gummy bears); and
- attractive colours or cartoon characters on packs.
Never mind that many of these names and colours appeal to adults trying to quit smoking, if there is the slightest chance they might attract children too they must be banned - even though there is scant evidence that large numbers of children (in the UK) are vaping or vaping is a gateway to smoking.
Nor - as even ASH keep telling us - is there evidence that e-cigarettes present a significant risk to our health.
So what’s going on?
Well, as I have argued many times, it’s pretty clear that the likes of ASH will never be satisfied with a smoke free world.
Their goal is a world free of recreational nicotine and the idea that people should be allowed to consume even smokeless products without significant restrictions is anathema to them.
That’s why it always makes me laugh when vaping advocates happily quote ASH as a perceived ally, ignoring CEO Deborah Arnott’s early scepticism and ASH's current lobbying of government for further restrictions on vaping products.
With friends like that etc.
Meanwhile, according to the Mirror:
Government sources say the Health Secretary [Sajid Javid] is deeply sceptical about raising the age limit [on the sale of tobacco] but has not yet ruled it out.
A source close to the Health Secretary did not deny officials were looking at the two ideas [raising the age of sale and banning flavoured e-liquids], but added: "These are not measures that are under consideration."
I'd love to believe it but almost every secretary of state for health goes native eventually and embraces the prohibition culture because few can withstand the pressure from the stop smoking/anti nicotine brigade.
Sajid Javid strikes me as more independent than most but at the end of the day he’s a politician with eyes on the biggest prize (Number Ten) so it's early days.
As for ASH, I am struck not just by the almost manic demand for ‘even greater vigilance’ with regard to vaping but the extraordinary level of control freakery.
I suspect we’re going to see a lot more of this from public health campaigners post Covid.
Thank God I’m not one of them. I’d be worn out by my own self-righteousness!
PS. Readers familiar with ASH's famous 'confidence trick' – the tactic that bore fruit with the introduction of smoking ban and was described with some glee here – may note similarities with the group's current lobbying.
I'll return to this subject later. In the meantime you might like to read the full story here – Comprehensive smoke‐free legislation in England: how advocacy won the day.
If there's one thing you can't accuse ASH of it's modesty. Hubris, on the other hand ...
Reader Comments (2)
It doesn't matter who we vote for, the smokerphobic political lobbyists win every time. Levelling up??? Thanks to that lot infiltrating government, even the basic right to vote has become meaningless and worthless unless you are one of the chosen few who ASH thinks worthy of inclusion in 21st century political process.
Sajid Javid is in fact an occasional smoker, or at least he was up till recently - there are rumours he quit in June this year, but in 2019 there was an article in the Telegraph where the journalist claimed Sajid had said he enjoyed an occasional cigarette. It’s still available if you search on Google for it. Let’s hope he has a streak of John Reid in him!