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** 19 June 2023
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** UK
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** Letters: Education and tax are the best ways to tackle child vaping - Dr Nick Hopkinson (#1)
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** Lobbyists with links to Big Tobacco fund pro-vaping Facebook campaigns (#2)
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** Disposable vapes cause fires and cost taxpayer, English and Welsh councils say (#3)
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** Scotland: Campaigners demand smoking ban in tenement stairwells (#4)
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** UK
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** Letters: Education and tax are the best ways to tackle child vaping - Dr Nick Hopkinson

Regarding your article (Disposable vapes should be banned to protect children, UK paediatricians say), the problem with banning disposable vapes is that e-cigarettes are a valuable and effective option for adults who want to quit smoking. There are more than 6 million smokers in the UK, and two out three will die from a smoking-related disease. We need to deal with youth vaping while making sure e-cigarettes are still available for adult smokers who want to quit.

A better approach, which the government could implement almost immediately, would be a £5 excise tax on disposable vapes. This would mean that they aren’t available at pocket-money prices and would give HMRC powers to deal with illegal imports.

We saw clearly how reducing the affordability of cigarettes was a key step in getting youth smoking down, so we can be confident that it will work for vaping too.

Nicholas Hopkinson, Professor of respiratory medicine, Imperial College London.

Source: The Guardian, 16 June 2023

See also: ASH – Response to youth vaping call for evidence ([link removed])
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** Lobbyists with links to Big Tobacco fund pro-vaping Facebook campaigns

A series of “grassroots” campaigns telling UK e-cigarette users they are under attack and urging them to “stand up for their rights” by opposing new vaping regulations are being run by secretive lobby groups with links to Big Tobacco.

The campaigns – pushed to millions of Facebook and Twitter users in the past few weeks – have names such as #BackVapingSaveLives and Save My Vape, and are styled to look like they are coordinated by members of the public. But in reality they are run and promoted by rightwing thinktanks and lobbyists that oppose stricter regulation and want to influence government policy.

They include a movement called We Vape UK, which claims to be run by an “independent” organisation “for vapers by vapers”, but was set up by a fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, a free market lobby group that does not disclose its funders and has long-running ties to the tobacco industry.

The fake grassroots movements – known as “astroturf” campaigns – have been described by transparency advocates and health experts as “a backdoor route into influencing opinion” and a “deliberate effort to sabotage public health policy”.

The campaigns appear to have been set up in 2021, but have ramped up their posts and ads in recent weeks amid pressure on the UK government to do more to tackle underage vaping, and ahead of the WHO COP10 summit on tobacco control in November.

Phil Chamberlain, deputy director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at Bath University, said the campaigns were an “opaque” attempt to shape public opinion by lobbyists whose views echoed those of the industry. “Trying to paint themselves as representing grassroots vapers is highly dubious,” he said. “It looks like a vehicle to try and undermine public health policy in this area.”

Evidence shows vaping is safer than cigarettes and most policymakers agree that adult smokers should be encouraged to switch. But experts are concerned about the use of e-cigarettes among people who have never smoked, with NHS data showing 9% of people aged 11-15 used e-cigarettes in 2021, up from 6% in 2018.

Rishi Sunak has said he is “deeply concerned” by the trend and is understood to be considering measures including a ban on flavours and restrictions on packaging.

Source: The Observer, 18 June 2023

See also: ASH – Use of e-cigarettes among young people in Great Britain ([link removed]) | Tobacco Tactics - Adam Smith Institute ([link removed])
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** Disposable vapes cause fires and cost taxpayer, English and Welsh councils say

Disposable vapes are increasingly causing fires in bin lorries and recycling issues at a “great cost” to the taxpayer, councils have said.

The Local Government Association, which represents councils in England and Wales, said single-use vapes such as Elf bars, Lost Mary and Juul were almost impossible to recycle. They are designed as one unit so batteries cannot be separated from the plastic.

The organisation said the lithium batteries inside the plastic can sharply increase in temperature if crushed and can become flammable. This costs taxpayers money through fire damage to equipment and the specialist treatment needed to deal with hazardous waste.

While the LGA did not go as far as calling for a ban on disposable vapes, it said retailers and producers of these products should take responsibility for the litter they create.

Councillor Linda Taylor, the LGA’s environment spokesperson, said: “Single-use vapes, just like any other item of hazardous waste, need to be properly classified and producers must take responsibility for the litter they create.

“The volume of these items that council waste teams are handling is increasing, and this is coming at a great cost to the council taxpayer.

“We need a crackdown on the producers and retailers of these products, and to get this litter under control.”

Councils are calling for the Environment Agency to proactively enforce retailer duties on paying into a producer compliance scheme and reform of the producer responsibility scheme.

E-cigarettes are classified as “toys, leisure and sports equipment” that councils say does not reflect the harm of the material or cost of collection. The government should also look at ways to encourage take-back of vapes through a deposit return scheme funded by producers, the LGA has argued.

Vaping has risen rapidly over the past decade, with an estimated 4.3 million people now using these products, according to a report from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). The data suggests 8.3% of adults in England, Wales and Scotland vape, up from 1.7% a decade ago, which equated to about 800,000 people.

Source: The Guardian, 18 June 2023

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** See also: ASH - Headline results for adult and youth vaping ([link removed])
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** Scotland: Campaigners demand smoking ban in tenement stairwells

An “archaic legal loophole” which allows smoking in public stairwells most often found in Scotland’s tenements is breaching clean-air rules, campaigners say.

A ban on smoking in enclosed public places came into force in March 2006 but while England’s version of the legislation, introduced a year later, extends to covered communal spaces such as landings and stairwells, the Scottish legislation does not.

Sheila Duffy, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Scotland, said: “People in Scotland are at a health disadvantage compared to England because there is no legal provision for clean air in shared tenement areas. I would call on the Scottish government to update the law and provide that protection.”

The loophole is still in place despite ASH Scotland saying in 2012 that it had received many inquiries from people who are affected by smoke drift and tobacco litter from stairs and landings.

Tenements are fixtures of cities Scotland’s cities and around 38 per cent of the country’s dwellings are flats, rising to 74 per cent in Glasgow.

The Scottish government has previously identified the issue of smoking in communal stairwells as an issue to be addressed but no action has been announced. In 2018, as part of the SNP’s “Raising Scotland’s tobacco-free generation” plan, the government pledged to “make smoking less acceptable and protect people in communal stairwells.”

Smoking is an issue that successive Scottish governments have been keen to address, often going further than regulations elsewhere in the UK.

The Scottish government has pledged to create a tobacco-free generation by 2034, meaning that fewer than 5 per cent of adults will smoke.

Source: The Times, 18 June 2023
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ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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