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** 8 September 2023
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** UK
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** Fresh programme welcomes North East smoking rates falling to new low (#1)
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** Councils Fear Being Cast Adrift By Government To Deal With Crumbling Concrete (#2)
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** Tories accept £350,000 donation from vape firm (#4)
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** Five million vapes thrown away every week - research (#5)
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** Scotland: (#3) New vaping clampdown as council bans cash sales of disposable e-cigs (#3)
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** Link of the week
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** Radio 4: You and Yours – experiences of vaping with Professor Nick Hopkinson (#6)
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** BTS short course - Treating Tobacco Dependence (#7)
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** UK
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** Fresh programme welcomes North East smoking rates falling to new low

The regional programme for tobacco control for the North East has responded to new figures which reveal a further fall in adult smoking in the area.

Fresh has welcomed the data published by the Office for National Statistics. It shows that adult smoking rates in the North East have fallen from 14.8 per cent in 2021 to 13.1 per cent in 2022.

The overall rate of smoking in adults in England in 2022 was 12.7 per cent. This is down from 13 per cent in 2021.

Ailsa Rutter, director of Fresh, said: “We welcome another fall in smoking here in the North East down to the lowest rates on record. Smoking has more than halved since 2005 when 29 per cent of adults smoked.

“It is credit to partners in our region’s local authorities and the NHS that reducing smoking has been made a top priority. Year round campaigns to raise motivation to quit and ensure smokers have access to support are life-saving.

“We are proud of the collaboration over many years on a comprehensive approach to reducing smoking and our clear vision that smoking needs to become a thing of the past, once and for all.”

But she added: “Smoking is still our number one killer and rates are much higher in key groups like people with serious mental illness. And overall, smoking rates are not falling fast enough.

“We need more action and more investment at national level through a properly funded new national tobacco control plan if we are going to reach the Government’s own target of reducing adult smoking to five per cent by 2030.”

Source: Northumberland Gazette, 7 September 2023

See Also: ONS Data - Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2022 ([link removed])
ASH response to ONS figures on smoking and vaping ([link removed])
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Read Here ([link removed])


** Councils Fear Being Cast Adrift By Government To Deal With Crumbling Concrete

Local government figures have expressed concern that councils could be left with a "time ticking bomb” of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in public buildings if government doesn't provide financial support to address the issue.

Dr Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Group, a non-partisan membership organisation which supports councils across the country, told PoliticsHome the crisis could be a “cataclysmic issue” for local authorities, with the possibility of "dozens" facing financial ruin if they have to fund RAAC works from their existing budgets.

More than a hundred schools across England are known to be at risk of collapse as a result of the concrete. It is expected that many more public buildings, including courts, hospitals and council buildings, could be affected.

Carr-West said he anticipates that this will be a “massive problem” in public buildings because “there’s potential for a huge amount of property that all has exactly the same profile as schools in terms of age and the materials used”.

He doubted that anyone in central government would have “any form of complete assessment” on how big the problem is, and said that “in general, flows of data between central government and local government are quite poor and have been getting poorer”.

He pointed to an ITV interview with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan earlier this week, in which she said that the responsibility for school buildings lies with “local authorities and multi-academy trusts”. Government, however, has said it wants to hold more information “centrally”, leading Carr-West to predict that Whitehall will rule that it is for local authorities to “assess, manage, and deal with this problem,” when many are strapped for cash.

Source: PoliticsHome, 7 September 2023
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Read Here ([link removed])


** Tories accept £350,000 donation from vape firm

The Conservative Party has accepted a six-figure donation from a company linked to colourful vapes despite a government crackdown on the products being marketed to children.

The Tories registered a £350,000 donation from Supreme 8 Ltd in May, its third biggest donation in the second quarter of this year. The company’s director is listed as Sandeep Chadha, known as Sandy, who is also the chief executive of Supreme Plc, which has made millions from the production and distribution of vapes.

Chadha said this year that the business had seen an “outstanding contribution” from vaping, including the distribution of Elf Bar and Lost Mary disposable vapes.

A report from Supreme, which sells vaping products under its 88Vape brand, said it was the “largest producer of e-liquids by volume in the UK” and produced “an average of over 250,000 bottles of e-liquid per working day”. It also provides vapes to the probation and prison service and produces more than 60 flavours of e-liquids, including dessert, sweets and fruit blends. It also sells vaping liquid containing up to 20mg of nicotine.

The Supreme report warns there is “a risk of government action to introduce more stringent laws and regulations” around vaping.

Writing in The Times in May, Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said that while vapes had a role in helping smokers quit it was “utterly unacceptable” for them to be marketed to children.

He also said vaping was not “risk-free” and added: “We do not know the long-term effects of many vape ingredients and companies deliberately inducing nicotine addiction in others to maximise profits is not in the interests of the person being addicted.

“Non-smokers should therefore be encouraged not to start vaping, and in particular not to use vapes containing ingredients such as nicotine, the main aim of which is to addict them.”

A government consultation on youth vaping closed in June, and is due to report back in the coming months.

Source: The Times, 8 September 2023
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Read Here ([link removed])


** Five million vapes thrown away every week - research

Five million disposable vapes are thrown away each week in the UK, a fourfold increase over the past year, according to research from recycling campaign group Material Focus.

Only 17% of vapers recycle their vapes in the correct recycling bins, the research found.

Material Focus, a non-profit organisation which campaigns to increase recycling rates, calculated that UK adults buy about 30 million vapes a month, a huge increase that reflects the rapid growth in popularity of these products.

Disposable vapes contain copper wires and lithium batteries, which are both valuable materials. Material Focus estimates that all the disposable vapes thrown away in a year contain enough lithium to provide batteries for 5,000 electric cars.

They should be disposed of in dedicated bins, in shops or recycling centres, containing a mineral called vermiculite to reduce the risk of fires. From there, they can be taken to special recycling facilities where they can be dismantled by hand.

By law, every shop that sells vapes is meant to take them back, but it is a facility that costs money to provide, and many do not.

The potential annual cost of recycling all those vapes would be £200m, a cost which is not being met by producers, importers or retailers, they say.

"There's far more vapes thrown on the floor, and in public bins and kitchen bins than are being recycled," says Scott Butler, executive director of Material Focus. Current recycling facilities are "a long way from what we need. It needs to be as easy to recycle as it is to buy them."

Source: BBC News, 8 September 2023

See also: Material Focus - Vapes recycling: An industry briefing for retailers and producers ([link removed])
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Read Here ([link removed])


** Scotland: New vaping clampdown as council bans cash sales of disposable e-cigs

A Scottish council is to ban the cash sales of disposable vaping products following a rise in the number of children buying them.

Aberdeen City Council hopes the move, which has the backing of police and health officials, will stop youngsters getting access to the single-use e-cigarettes.

It is illegal to sell the products to anyone under 18 but the new retailers’ charter has been adopted following evidence of children handing over £10 to strangers and asking them to buy the products on their behalf.

Trading Standards officials said their popularity has also shown that one in five retailers in the city were prepared to ‘break the law’ by selling to under 18s during their test purchasing scheme.

The new charter will mean any shopkeeper who signs up to the voluntary scheme will only be able to accept card payments for tobacco and vaping products.

A report that went before councillors on Tuesday stated: “For as long as single-use, colourful, sweet-flavoured vapes are permitted to be sold, they will continue to appeal to those too young to buy them legally.” The hope is that if a retailer will not accept cash, the child will not be willing to hand over their bank card to a stranger as “they will have no control over how much that adult with spend in the shop.” Disposable vaping products are becoming so popular that in parts of Aberdeen they are now being sold in non-traditional outlets including mobile phone repair shops and hairdressers.

Earlier this week First Minister Humza Yousaf said his government would hold a consultation on a single-use vape ban as he set out his priorities for the coming year.

A recent Scottish government report found that 22 per cent of all under-18s - around 78,000 - are believed to have used a vape last year with more young people using them than smoking cigarettes.

Source: Daily Mail, 7 September 2023

See also: ASH ([link removed]) Policy options to tackle the issue of disposable (single use) vapes ([link removed])
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Read Here ([link removed])


** Link of the week
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** Radio 4: You and Yours – experiences of vaping with Professor Nick Hopkinson

On Tuesday’s episode of You and Yours, presenter Winifred Robinson takes calls from the public about their experiences of vaping. Professor Nick Hopkinson, respiratory consultant and Chair of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) joins Robinson to help answer questions on the health impacts of vaping, youth vaping and the effectiveness of vaping for smoking cessation.

Source: You and Yours, 5 September 2023
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Listen Here ([link removed])


** BTS short course - Treating Tobacco Dependence

The British Thoracic Society is holding a treating tobacco dependence short course on 7th December 2023. The course is aimed at all healthcare professionals working in, or with an interest in tobacco dependence. The course will be interactive, with presentations and case studies encouraging attendees to discuss and consider how they can address tobacco dependence in their daily practice. Topics will include behaviour change and pharmacological interventions.

Further information on the course learning objectives, content and registration is available on the BTS website here: [link removed]
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For more information email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk
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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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