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Calls for £4 tax to go on disposable vapes to put off children
Health campaigners are calling for an extra tax on disposable vapes, to stop children from being able to buy them for less than £5.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) said adding an excise tax of £4 to each single use vape, which currently cost around £4.99, would make them significantly less affordable for children while still less expensive than tobacco.
It comes as the Local Government Association (LGA) warned strict new measures were needed to regulate the display and marketing of vaping products in the same way as tobacco to crack down on stores selling them to children.
Disposable vapes are the cheapest e-cigarettes on the market and are now the most used product among young people who currently vape.
This is up more than seven-fold from 7% in 2020 and 8% in 2021 to 52% in 2022, according to the charity’s research.
It argued such a tax would also have an environmental benefit, with discarded single-use vapes equating to 10 tonnes of lithium being thrown away a year.
ASH chief executive Deborah Arnott said: “Smoking is much more harmful than vaping and smoking remains the biggest threat to our children’s health. But vaping is not risk-free, and in the light of the recent increase in children vaping, government action is urgently needed to tighten regulation and increase enforcement.”
“Children who vape mainly use cheap disposables, which can be bought for under a fiver.
"Making them less affordable by adding a specific tax for single-use disposable vapes in the March Budget would be a simple first step, reducing both child vaping and the vast quantities of single-use vapes being thrown into landfill.”
The LGA is calling for vapes to be in plain packaging and kept out of sight behind the counter, with mandatory age-of-sale signage on products.
David Fothergill, chairman of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, said: “It is not right that stores are able to prominently display vaping paraphernalia for all to see, such as in a shop window, often in bright, colourful packaging that can appeal to children.
“Vapes should only be used as an aid to quit smoking.
"While research has shown vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking, it is deeply worrying that more and more children – who have never smoked – are starting vaping.
“This has become a major concern for councils, who are seeing a sharp rise in cases of shops and other outlets selling vaping products to people under 18. This is why we are calling for tougher and stricter regulation of vaping products to tackle the growing cases of children getting hold of them.”
Source: ITV, 11 February 2023
See also: ASH - resources on youth vaping
ITV news – Health campaigners call for extra tax on vapes aired 11 February 2023
BBC News - Keep vapes out of sight of children in shops, say councils
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3m illicit cigarettes have been discovered in Bradford
West Yorkshire Trading Standards has seized its 10 millionth illicit cigarette – and three million of those cigarettes were found in Bradford.
The seizures come as shop keepers resort to increasingly inventive ways to hide their counterfeit stash – from hydraulic ceiling tiles to hidden chutes.
Trading Standards regularly carries out operations to check if retailers are selling counterfeit cigarettes, and this week an operation in Huddersfield led to the organisation seizing its 10 millionth cigarette.
With three million illicit cigarettes found during operations in Bradford, the district is the area of West Yorkshire that has seen most seizures.
Three tonnes of hand rolling tobacco has also been seized since Trading Standards began its operations.
The Huddersfield operation saw contraband found in three vehicles, in a hydraulic ceiling concealment and a wall hide.
A spokesman for Trading Standards said: “The concealments show the lengths traders will go to in order to hide their illegal activities.”
Source: The Telegraph and Argus, 7 February 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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