The government’s decision to ban disposable vapes last week was welcomed by many people who wish this type of e-cigarette had never been put on the market in the first place.
Whether the ban will remove them from the market in practice is another question.
According to a study published last month, disposable vapes are used by 2.6 million adults, most of whom are smokers or ex-smokers. What will they do after the ban? Some of them will switch to refillable vapes, some will buy disposables on the black market and some will switch to cigarettes. There is no way of knowing what the split will be but, as the authors of that study concluded, the ban “has the potential to slow progress in driving down smoking prevalence”.
A growing body of evidence from economists shows that when governments apply taxes, advertising bans and flavour bans to e-cigarettes, it leads to an increase in cigarette sales. This is unsurprising since e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes are direct substitutes, but politicians haven’t learnt the lesson (or, more cynically, they don’t want to lose tobacco duty revenue).The evidence that flavour bans lead to more people smoking is particularly relevant since Rishi Sunak says he intends to restrict flavours in refillable e-cigarettes.
If the government won’t look at the academic evidence, it should at least look at Australia where e-cigarette prohibition has been a fiasco. As I said in the Spectator last week and in an IEA briefing last year, a more sensible approach would be to enforce the laws that already exist. It has been illegal to sell a vape to anyone under 18 since 2015 and yet many unscrupulous retailers are brazenly flouting the law.
If kids are buying disposable vapes from corner shops, there is nothing to stop them buying refillable vapes. Banning a product that many people have used to quit smoking is not the solution to underage vaping.
After the ban was announced, the BBC interviewed a father of three who “fears it will drive the sale of illegal or black-market vapes” and a 17 year-old vaper who “would consider cigarettes as an alternative if a ban came in”. And yet they both supported the ban!
As James Buchanan warned us in 2005, we have become so addicted to paternalism that we welcome every new prohibition even though we know that it’s not good for us.
