Cost and convenience, the secret of a successful quit smoking tool

From Sunday (June 1) the sale of disposable vapes will be banned in the UK.

Yesterday I was asked to comment on that, and the claim that 200,000 former smokers may return to smoking tobacco.

Although I’m opposed to yet another ban - which feels like a knee-jerk reaction to youth vaping and an equally hysterical response to an environmental issue that could be solved through other means - I do think the prospect of ex-smokers relapsing is unlikely and probably a red herring.

A handful may go back to smoking, if they’re very weak-willed, but if you’ve successfully quit smoking why on earth would you return to cigarettes (which are far more expensive than vapes) when the market still offers plenty of options in terms of e-cigarettes?

A more credible argument is the one that says that some smokers who wish to quit may be disincentivised to do so if the cheapest and easiest to use e-cigarette is prohibited.

Without wishing to blow my own trumpet (or mix metaphors), I’ve been banging this drum longer than most people, even vaping advocates.

Back in 2016, for example, when many vaping activists were obsessed by coils and pods and eliquids, I wrote:

My gut feeling – based on no research whatsoever – is that if hundreds of millions of smokers worldwide are to switch to vaping the device has to be as simple to use as a combustible cigarette.

I base this on the observation that the main reason cigarettes were so popular in the 20th century was convenience.

Compare cigarettes to pipe-smoking. The late Lord Harris, chairman of Forest for 20 years until his death in 2006, was an enthusiastic pipe smoker. Then, in his early Eighties, he suddenly gave up.

I won't go into the circumstances (it was nothing to do with health) but the principal reason was the amount of paraphernalia he had to carry around – his pipe (or pipes), tobacco pouch, pipe cleaners, lighter and so on.

Throughout the 20th century I suspect many pipe smokers quit for the same reason, with many switching to cigarettes.

My guess is the majority of smokers will only switch to vaping if the device matches the convenience of cigarettes [because] what matters most to consumers is cost and convenience.

I envisaged an e-cigarette that was as simple, convenient, and pleasurable to use as a combustible cigarette, with no buttons to press, no eliquids to refill, and no batteries to recharge.

(The cigalike didn’t count because it was so basic it was little more than a baby’s dummy.)

I’m not sure when disposable vapes first appeared in the UK, but I think I called it correctly because it was the cost and convenience of disposable vapes that led to their popularity with sales peaking around 2020/21.

It seems a little foolish therefore to ban one of the principal products that has helped reduce smoking rates in the past decade.

But that’s public health campaigners for you, and they’re still not satisfied.

According to Hazel Cheeseman, CEO of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the ban on disposable vapes is merely a “useful first step”.

Which begs the question, what’s next?

See: Disposable vapes will soon be banned. Will it change anything? (The Times)

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Why should it be about best ways to force people to quit? Why should the debate be about whether vapes are good for getting people to stop smoking? Why can't it be about defending both choices without making it all fit the state agenda of a future without smokers or criminalising those smokers who refuse to quit.

I am sure I am not the only one who can't stand vaping and I am sure I am not the only person who enjoys smoking. Maybe I am not the only person infuriated by quit, switch or die threats either.

Why can't we talk about harm reduction that doesn't involve quitting smoking? We used to until the zealots decided they did not want smoking in their vision of a future utopia. In refusing to discuss harm reduction for those who do not want to quit, the government and anti smoker industry - which includes the vaping and HNB industries as well as the anti smoker "charities" - are throwing people into the fire and making it absolutely obvious that the smoking issue is not about health but ideology.

People may not want their grandkids to grow up smoking but I'll bet like me, they do not want their grandkids lives ruined by being criminalised if they end up smoking and, let's face it, now that the Government has removed all good measures to stop children smoking by handing the market to unregulated criminal gangs, the chances of kids smoking in future, like my generation of the 1960s in the past, is far more likely.

The generational ban is the worst piece of lawmaking in my lifetime and there will be many victims of it. Being able to use a state controlled refillable vape just won't do anything to stop the misery that lies ahead for the next generation.

I truly feel sorry for them and hope that my generation has gone before the state bullies make all smoking illegal which they will do not too far into the future (the next logical step) because of accusations of age discrimination and failures to enforce the age related ban.

It never was about protecting the next generation. It was always about getting a foot in to make all smoking illegal for everyone. Plenty of people who don't smoke or vape hate vaping too so it won't be long once the zealots get their way on criminalising all smokers that they then turn on vaping. After all, there's money, jobs, profit and careers built on antismokerism which cannot be lost in the future.