The US federal government wants to ban the sale of menthol-flavoured tobacco.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to ban all Juul vapes.
Now, having already banned menthol and other flavoured tobacco, the European Commission wants to go further and outlaw all flavoured heated tobacco products.
The move comes after the Commission estimated a 10% rise in the sales volumes of heated tobacco products in half a dozen EU countries, helping heated tobacco products to exceed 2.5% of total sales of tobacco products in the EU.
Post Brexit of course the UK is not bound by EU law and on Friday the Telegraph reported that the government has no plans to ban heated tobacco products.
Nevertheless Europe editor James Crisp revealed a small problem. Thanks to the Protocol Northern Ireland will be forced to impose the ban regardless of the fact that, like the rest of the UK, it is no longer in the EU.
The issue of Northern Ireland aside, banning flavoured heated tobacco products is a terrible idea but consistent with the creeping prohibition of all nicotine products I’ve been banging on about.
I first wrote about heated tobacco - specifically iQOS - eight years ago. I was in Switzerland, which was one of only a handful of countries where the Philip Morris product was on sale - and I met a former smoker who convinced me it was a great alternative to smoking and vaping.
He had tried e-cigarettes, he said, and didn’t like them. Heated tobacco, he explained, was a half-way house between the two.
The iQOS heat sticks contain tobacco that is tightly compressed (allowing it to be heated but not burned) and come in several flavours, including menthol. It tastes like tobacco and you can consume a heat stick in a few minutes so there is a clear ‘beginning’ and ‘end’, just like a cigarette but unlike vaping.
He took me to a busy bar where smoking and vaping were both banned and proceeded to quietly and unobtrusively use his device with no-one either noticing or caring because there were no plumes of smoke or vapour.
I was impressed. He also said he felt better, health wise, as a result of switching.
I could see the attraction of heated tobacco to smokers who, in their millions, don’t care for e-cigarettes and the idea that the product might be severally restricted or banned makes no sense to me.
But that’s government for you.
Anyway this is my response, quoted by the Telegraph, to the prospect of a ban on heated tobacco products being imposed on both EU member states and Northern Ireland:
“Consumers in Northern Ireland should not be discriminated against. If flavoured heated tobacco products are available in the rest of the UK, smokers in Northern Ireland must have that choice too,” Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said.
“Banning a product that is less harmful than traditional cigarettes would be madness and counter-productive as a public health measure,” he added.
The irony - that word again - is that the company with the largest share of the heated tobacco market is Philip Morris International (PMI) whose UK division has previously urged the UK government to ban the sale of traditional cigarettes by 2030.
It can do this because Philip Morris’ share of the UK cigarette market is less than ten per cent so a ban would have relatively little impact on the company compared to its rivals.
I imagine Philip Morris would hope to replace sales of cigarettes with heated tobacco. The problem is, once you start urging government to ban one tobacco product, all you are doing is feeding the prohibitionist beast so don’t be surprised - and don’t complain - when it turns round and bites you on the bum.
PS. Someone on Twitter has asked whether the Scottish Government might adopt the EC’s proposal and ban flavoured heated tobacco products as well.
Good question and the answer is quite possibly, especially if the Scottish Government sees some political benefit in being more closely aligned with the EU than the rest of the UK on a ‘matter of public health’.
It would be difficult and even farcical to police though because how could they stop people buying the product in England and bringing it into Scotland?
As the Telegraph’s James Crisp commented on Twitter, in relation to Northern Ireland and with a heavy dose of sarcasm:
There is no way one of these things could be popped in a pocket and walked across an invisible border. NONE.
Quite.