Vape tax and a ban on disposable vapes - will vapers really go back to smoking?
Tuesday, March 12, 2024 at 14:43 Some thoughts prompted by last week’s Budget.
Yes, the vape tax is stupid and sends the wrong message about the risk of vaping, but will former smokers who now vape really go back to smoking tobacco, as vaping advocates claim?
The answer, quite simply, is no.
After all, how weak-willed do you have to be that, having stopped smoking by switching to vapes, you then revert to what is still a substantially more expensive and riskier product when the price of vaping goes up?
You may conceivably quit vaping, but why would you go back to a much more expensive habit? Unfortunately this is the type of non sequitur vaping advocates love to advance.
Exactly the same argument is used in relation to a ban on disposable vapes. Prohibit them, we are told, and vapers will go back to smoking and more lives will be lost. Allegedly.
Look, I'm strongly opposed to a ban on single use vapes, but not for that reason because I simply don’t accept it.
Prohibition of disposable vapes might discourage existing smokers from switching because they are convenient and easy to use (much like cigarettes, in fact), but why would anyone revert to a product that, as I say, is vastly more expensive and far more harmful, potentially, when other options, including rechargeable vapes, are still widely available on the high street?
It doesn't make sense but it's typical of the 'vapers as victims' narrative that vaping advocates often promote.
One of the worst is that vapers cannot be expected to share an outdoor smoking area with, heaven forbid, smokers because the smell of tobacco smoke, and the sight of people smoking, might send them back into the arms of their former love.
Oh, please!!!
A similar argument was made by some ex-smokers ahead of the public smoking ban.
It was said that smoking should be banned in every pub in the country because it wasn’t fair to expose ex-smokers to other people smoking because the temptation to smoke might be too much for them.
I remember being interviewed alongside former smokers who made exactly that point, but it’s a bit like banning alcohol in pubs because the urge to drink might be too much for a recovering alcoholic.
The temptation argument may have some validity for the very weak-willed, but it’s not sufficient reason to ban the public consumption of alcohol, or tobacco.
If you’re an alcoholic or a former smoker it’s up to you, not the rest of society, to avoid situations where you might be encouraged to drink or smoke. Own your addiction, don’t expect others to change their lifestyle too.
But back to vaping.
I’m opposed to most public vaping bans, which seem unnecessary to me, but if you’re against excessive restrictions on vaping I would suggest that it’s in your interest to oppose excessive restrictions on smoking too because one will inevitably lead to the other.
Every time I write about this I seem to annoy a handful of vapers who insist they support smokers’ rights too. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of evidence to support this.
Many people who used to be outspoken opponents of anti-smoking legislation are now virtually mute on the subject, but woe betide anything that threatens their new love, vaping.
Moreover, while there are some vapers who are opposed to excessive regulations on tobacco and smoking, I challenge anyone to name any pro-vaping organisation that has EVER publicly opposed any anti-smoking measure, whether it be smoking bans, plain packaging, the ban on menthol cigarettes, or the generational tobacco ban.
I’m sorry, but I can’t think of a single one.
They may think they’re being clever or politically prudent, but I am convinced that, long-term, it’s self-defeating, and the moral cowardice of not standing up for adults who prefer to smoke is one of the reasons I find some members of the vaping lobby more than a bit pathetic.
The truth is, the pro-vaping argument will never be won on health grounds alone. Even though there is currently little evidence to suggest that vaping is a serious threat to health, history tells us that it’s irrelevant.
I guarantee that sufficient 'evidence' will be found, sooner or later, that will make redundant all the arguments about vaping being 95 per cent less harmful than smoking tobacco.
At that point, vaping advocates who have focussed exclusively on the health benefits of vaping (compared to smoking) will have nowhere to turn. They will be up a cul-de-sac of their own making.
If, on the other hand, they also promoted the freedom of choice argument (the same argument Forest has used for 45 years to defend an adult’s right to smoke and, more recently, vape), they would at least have a consistent and coherent position to fall back on.
That position, to be clear, is this: whatever the health risks of smoking or vaping, as long as consumers are informed about the potential and relative risks of either habit, adults must be free to practise either habit without punitive restrictions and taxation, or, worse, prohibition.
The same argument applies to drinking alcohol, consuming sugar, or eating meat, fatty foods and dairy products – and anything else that might conceivably be 'bad' for us over a long period.
Instead, vaping advocates have put their entire case in one basket - the one that says vaping is significantly ‘safer’ than smoking.
I don’t dispute that argument, by the way, but remember the 'debate' about passive smoking?
To this day I would contend that, based on the evidence, the risk of harm from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has been greatly exaggerated and still doesn’t justify the comprehensive public smoking bans that have swept the world.
Despite that we lost the public and political battle because we faced a tsunami of 'evidence', much of it unsubstantiated or anecdotal, and most of it statistically insignificant in terms of risk, but none of that mattered. It was the perception of harm that counted, not the scientific reality.
Meanwhile organisations like the World Vapers Alliance continue to talk openly of ‘beating’ smoking, as if smoking is the enemy, ignoring the inconvenient truth that millions of adults enjoy the habit and don’t want to quit or switch to an alternative nicotine product.
(This US-based organisation was at it again only last week, with a press release commenting on the UK Government’s proposed vape tax headlined, 'The UK’s announced increased vaping tax jeopardises the country’s success in beating smoking'.)
Sadly we’re living in an age where governments – aided and abetted by a ravenous public health industry that sees excise duty on vaping products as a future source of income for its work – want to create the impossible, a risk free society in which everyday decisions about our private health and welfare are taken not by individual citizens but by politicians and faceless bureaucrats.
To justify government intervention, the anti-smoking lobby argues that ‘helping’ smokers quit will save the taxpayer money, but will it?
Not for one second do I believe the claims that smoking costs society in Britain 15, 50 or, even more absurdly, 150 billion pounds a year.
The only figures that matter are the estimated cost of treating smoking-related illnesses on the NHS (said to be £2.5b annually but almost certainly exaggerated, like everything else), and the recorded annual income from tobacco duty and VAT - around £9-11 billion a year.
Viewed dispassionately, smokers are therefore a net benefit to the taxpayer, a fact that should never be forgotten by government, anti-smoking campaigners, and vapers who will one day have to pick up the tab as revenue from tobacco declines thanks to a thriving generational ban black market allied to Britain's self-imposed, and self-defeating, 'smoke-free' status.
In fact, to those complaining about the Chancellor's vape tax, all I can say is ... you ain't seen nothing yet.
This is just the start of a cash grab on your habit and the closer government gets to its smoke-free ambition the more vapers will be forced to pay.
Reader Comments (4)
Simon I agree with what you say if your comparing the legal price of the two products with tax applied. However the convenience argument does hold away if you bring black market / duty free prices for tobacco into the mix. If someone did want to switch back they are not automatically going to go back to uk duty paid tobacco out of a shop and might start buying tobacco illegally or from aboard. It could therefore be considered a double whammy with the loss of the tax proceeds from vaping going straight into the hands or criminal gangs / other governments because of this. It won't apply to everyone but it could definitely be a significant shift.
There is only one valid argument that can win the day for all people to be able to live their lives freely and without oppression from majorities - or powerful well funded minorities - and that is to support freedom of choice, tolerance, and consideration for all. The country is big enough to cater for everyone's choice whether to avoid smoking or vaping, or to enjoy the company of smokers or Vapers in peace and comfort in well ventilated public places and everyone benefits from the tax.
Vaping organisations will never win anything but the drip effect of more restrictions previously suffered by people who enjoy smoking if they keep making it about health. Few are convinced by the argument that vaping is more healthy than smoking - and lest we forget, smoking was once promoted as healthy by medics and government and look where that got smokers 60 years down the line.
One of the most ridiculous arguments from the vaping fraternity is that they quit "because Government told us to" . There may be many good reasons to quit smoking but because government ordered it is not one of them - unless you live in North Korea or Isis controlled territories in the Middle East.
It also begs the question that if such people are so eager to do as Government tells them, what else might they do for government? Jump off a bridge? Report their neighbours for smoking? Go out and Jog For Britain? It's simply daft.
Support freedom of choice for all or lose. It really is that simple.
I also agree that the scandalous inflated figures invented to promote smokers as a drain on society are more about manipulation than truth. The fact is, the anti smoker industry has promised for decades that if they were given tons of public money, the NHS would benefit and as less people smoked there would be more services available for all. That is evidently untrue because after all these decades of throwing money at prevention rather than cure, the NHS has never been so bad, nor people so sick from a myriad of health problems. Fewer people smoke than ever before and yet there are less beds available in hospital, longer waiting lists, overwhelmed GP surgeries, non existent NHS dentists, a chronic shortages of ambulances, and well, we could go on.
The fact is anti smokerism is a scam and the real drain on public finances. However much they get, far more people could benefit much more if the money thrown into the black hole of anti smokerism could be diverted instead to where it should go - direct patient care to benefit all rather than fund the fat salaries and vanity projects of a handful of activists who seem intent on making us all fear life and living itself.
I don't know when vapers last bought from the illegal tobacco black market or from abroad but even though both are much cheaper than the rip off price of shop bought tobacco - thanks to the greedy tax grab of government to fund anti smoker organisations - they are both still much more expensive than the price of vapes.
I know many people who previously bought from both sources but switched to vaping not because they enjoy it more, or because Government told them to quit, or because they feared for their life, but because it is cheaper than smoking. It is as simple as that. And even though Government now wants to screw vapers for the tax it will lose from smokers, there is a still one hell of a long way to go through the years to get to the point where smokers who switched because vaping is cheaper will return to the high cost of smoking if a little tax is put on vapes or disposables are banned.
I do not believe for one minute that those vapers who stopped smoking because it scared them and switched to vaping because they couldn't quit the nicotine will go back to smoking either. They are far too anti smoking for that to happen.
I agree with you Simon, it's an attempt to blackmail government into supporting vapers over smokers.
As we know, that isn't going to happen. Someone has to cover the tax of lost smokers and the complete loss of tax and revenue when smoking is made illegal and gifted to the black market and like it or, it will be vapers which is why more than ever they need to get on the side of smokers and stop throwing us under the bus to win favours for their product of choice.
It would be nice to think that there are some vapers out there who still support the rights of smokers and remain as horrified that their erstwhile friends continue to suffer the same the levels of bullying, harassment and plain unfairness as they did in their smoking days, but I think that the bottom line is that vapers are in effect just a new form of ex-smokers. I’m sure we can all remember the phrase – much quoted in the early days of the anti-smoking campaign, less so today – that “ex-smokers are the worst” (as in the least tolerant and most grumpy). I’ve yet to meet or hear of a single vaper or vape group who hasn’t parroted exactly the same “eew, howwid cigarette smoke” as any pre-vape-days ex-smoker used to do, regularly. If anyone does know of one, do let me know. It’d be nice to know that there’s at least one out there ….