Record UK vaping figures create a stir

Interesting to note a sharp increase in the number of vapers in the UK.

According to the latest figures - which are based on a survey of 13,000 people commissioned by ASH and conducted by YouGov - there are now 4.3 million people in England, Scotland and Wales who vape.

Via Bloomberg, the Press Association reports that:

Of the 4.3 million current vapers, around 2.4 million are ex-smokers, 1.5 million are current smokers and 350,000 have never smoked a cigarette.

The figures also show that the proportion of current e-cigarette users who have never smoked has increased from 4.9% last year to 8.1% this year.

Last year, in comparison, the proportion of adults using e-cigarettes increased to 7.1%, or 3.6 million people, the same as in 2019 following a drop in 2020.

Meanwhile, as I’ve commented on before, it’s also interesting to note the extent to which ASH is controlling the narrative about vaping in the UK.

From surveys about vaping prevalence to briefing notes about youth vaping, ASH is now the go to source of information - and comment - on the issue, a position I would have expected the New Nicotine Alliance to occupy but unfortunately, and for a number of reasons, the NNA appears to have lost the drive it once had and the initiative has long since been ceded to ASH.

I say sadly because I’m pretty sure this will eventually bite the vaping community (including the vaping industry) where it hurts.

Consider this. It’s less than a couple of months since ASH issued a press release with the headline ‘Fears of growth in children vaping disposables backed up by new national survey’ (July 7, 2022).

The press release featured comments by three people - Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH; Gillian Golden, chief executive of the Independent British Vape Trade Association (IBVTA); and Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addictions, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, but it was McNeil whose quote featured first and most prominently.

According to ‘the author of a forthcoming review of the evidence for Government’:

“The rise in vaping is concerning and we need to understand what lies behind this such as packaging, accessibility, taste or addictiveness.”

She didn’t say “The rise in youth (or underage) vaping is concerning.” She said “The rise in vaping is concerning.”

Is that significant? Long-term I think it is.

I have never hidden my view that even those members of the tobacco control industry who currently have a more liberal attitude to vaping will eventually reverse ferret and condemn e-cigarettes in much the same way that they currently attack smoking.

I’m particularly looking forward to the moment when vapers in the UK outnumber smokers. Suddenly it will no longer be a “vaping revolution” (to quote ASH) but a “vaping epidemic”.

Even if the health risks of vaping are significantly less than smoking - which seems to be the case although we won’t know the long-term risks for several decades - public health campaigners will undoubtedly focus on the addictive nature of nicotine, arguing that no level of addiction can be tolerated and consumers must be ‘saved’ from their craving and/or dependence.

Also significant is the emphasis on the increase - from 4.9% last year to 8.1% this year - in the proportion of current e-cigarette users who have never smoked. According to the PA:

The authors of the report said this figure was an "all time high".

Everyone from government to ASH to Philip Morris is forever saying that the only people who should vape are adult smokers who are trying to quit (and when they have stopped smoking they should give up vaping too) so this translates - in their minds - as ‘very disturbing’.

Personally I’m rather more relaxed about never smokers vaping because I’ve always taken the view that if the evidence suggests that e-cigarettes are relatively if not completely harmless, and there is little evidence to suggest that vaping is a gateway to smoking (which is potentially a far riskier habit), what’s the problem?

I also believe that if the objective is to convince confirmed smokers to switch to vaping it’s not enough to ‘sell’ e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid, the product has to be promoted as a pleasurable recreational device in its own right.

In fact, by promoting e-cigarettes as nothing more than a quit smoking product you are arguably diminishing its appeal for many smokers, especially those who aren’t inclined to stop smoking.

Yes, there is a risk that more never smokers might take up vaping but (seen through the eyes of the anti-smoking industry) is that worse than millions of people continuing to smoke a potentially much more dangerous product?

The most interesting part of all this is that despite the sharp rise in the number of people vaping (mostly adults despite the increase in the proportion of children who are vaping), the likes of ASH are still concerned about ‘brightly coloured pocket-sized products with sweet flavours and sweet names’ even though children don’t have a monopoly on being drawn to such products.

Look at actual sweets. I’m prepared to hazard a guess that far more sweets are bought and consumed by adults than by children. Should the packaging and flavours of sweets be restricted as well to discourage children from developing a lifetime addiction to Haribo or Skittles?

For many adults the myriad flavours are part of the appeal of e-cigarettes and the packaging must be permitted to represent those flavours.

Like tobacco, if you don’t want children to vape the aim should be to crack down on under age sales of e-cigarettes and proxy purchasing.

Don’t ban flavours because by restricting choice adults are going to be penalised. Nor should government raise the age of sale of e-cigarettes from 18 to 21 because that will merely infantilise a generation of young adults.

For the full survey (Use of e-cigarettes among young people in Great Britain, 2022) click here.

Here too are some other media reports:

'Vaping revolution': 4.3m Brits now use e-cigarettes - but 350,000 of them have never smoked (Sky News)

Holy smoke! Vaping hits record level with 4.3m Britons using e-cigarettes (Daily Mail)

PS. Someone’s not happy:

Sheila Duffy, chief executive of ASH Scotland, has called for action to be taken to tackle vaping among young people …

Duffy urged the Scottish Government to shut down marketing and advertising of vaping products, as well as carrying out further assessment of what they contain.

See - Rise in number of young people vaping is 'disaster in the making' (STV)

Not like Sheila to over-react!

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Vaping has become just another weapon for the anti smoker industry to bash us with. If ASH claims the rise in vapers is great news, you can bet that somewhere down the line it is very bad news for smokers.

Meanwhile any long term health issues that vaping might bring are being ignored and glossed over in the race to force smokers to quit or switch.

ASH is not, in my opinion, a credible organisation so pushing vaping as safe is not something I can believe from what is effectively a political lobby group run by activists posing as charity workers that now aligns it's beliefs with that of Big Tobacco's Philip Morris which also wants to push smokers to vaping and let's face it, for profit and not altruism.

[Paul McNamara]

"Yes, there is a risk that more never smokers might take up vaping"

Insofar as vaping continues to prove relatively harmless it is a certainty that more and more never smokers will take up vaping. For the same reason that people like coffee, it is a mild stimulant. There is a good reason why 50% of the population once smoked, many humans like nicotine and the effect it has.