Blog

The British Medical Association (BMA) is calling on the UK Government to put a stop to what they’re describing, a “growing epidemic of vape use in the UK”.

The BMA says: “While the BMA recognises that vapes can be a useful tool in helping some people to stop smoking cigarettes, they offer a less dangerous rather than a risk-free alternative, with the World Health Foundation having declared them harmful. Vaping can lead to nicotine addiction, with nicotine having the potential to cause health problems such as high blood pressure and increased risk of COPD. Further, some e-cigarettes have been found to contain other harmful substances such as lead.”

This statement goes against independent British research and evidence that has shown vaping to have significant low risk for adults trying to quit smoking and will only cause unnecessary concern for their journey to a smoke-free future.

In the BMA’s recent report, “Taking our breath away: why we need stronger regulations of vapes“, the organisation proposed its ‘blueprint’ for the legislation they hope to see the government impose.

The BMA’s recommendations include:

• Banning the commercial sale of all disposable vapes
• Banning all non-tobacco vape flavours
• Prohibiting the use of all imagery, colouring and branding for both the packaging and vape device
• Further restrictions on all advertising and marketing, and ensuring vapes are kept behind the counter and not on display in shops and retail outlets
• Tighter regulation and restrictions for related nicotine products, e.g. nicotine pouches, to prevent their availability and marketing. Including age of sale restrictions, plain packaging, clear product information and restricted point-of-sale displays
• Government funded and delivered education campaigns for the public on “the dangers of vapes” to reduce appeal

Prof David Strain, Chair of the BMA’s board of science, said:

“As a doctor, I understand the role vapes can play in helping people to stop smoking, but they have no rightful place in our children and young people’s lives and when it comes to protecting their health, we cannot afford to gamble.

An industry so obviously targeting children with colours, flavours and branding, to push a product that can lead to nicotine addiction and potential further harms cannot be allowed to happen any longer.”

Experts Respond to BMA Report

Prof Peter Hajek, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of the Health and Lifestyle Research Unit, of Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) said:

“Some of the regulations that this report proposes are sensible, but the call to ban vape flavours other than tobacco is misguided. The target that doctors should worry about most of all is smoking, and smokers of all ages prefer vapes with non-tobacco flavours.

The headline concern, proffered to justify this demand, is that 8% of 11-17-year-olds tried vaping. But it is important to add that smoking in young people is at an all time low, and that the figure includes would-be smokers who would otherwise be using the incomparably more risky alternative. Despite the report’s claim, vaping is less addictive than smoking. Only a small proportion of never-smokers progress to vaping daily.

Regulations that prevent the uptake of vaping by youth are needed. However, regulators need to make sure that concerns about very hypothetical future risks of youth vaping do not trump concerns about the very real and present risks of adult smoking.”

In agreement with Hajek that the BMA report makes reasonable recommendations, such as restrictions on marketing to youth and tackling the illegal sale of vapes, Prof Lion Shahab, Professor of Health Psychology and Co-director of UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group at University College London (UCL), added:

“Some of the proposed recommendations by the BMA are likely to have intended consequences. For instance, research has shown that flavours are important to adults switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, not just to youth; and an outright flavour ban may drive up cigarette use as has been shown in the US where such bans have been implemented.

Banning product categories, such as disposable vapes, outright may have intuitive appeal but ignores the fact that most users of disposable vapes in the UK are either past or current smokers. In addition, such action may propagate the message that e-cigarettes are as (or even more) harmful than cigarettes. This is not true but is widely believed by the public, even among those who would benefit from switching, in particular smokers who have failed to stop with other means.

For the longest time, the UK seemed to strike the right balance: encouraging smokers who were struggling to quit smoking to use e-cigarettes as a means of harm reduction while use of vapes among youth who were never smokers remained low. E-cigarettes were seen as a helpful smoking cessation aid, mainly used by adult smokers. We must get back to this state.”

Shahab concluded that what we need for this to happen is to “make vaping boring again”, i.e. reduce the appeal to children by changing marketing strategies and packaging designs, limiting but not eliminating flavours, increasing taxation on nicotine products (not exceeding combustible tobacco products) and providing clear public health messaging that e-cigarettes are to help smokers quit to maintain the government’s smoke-free target of 5% by 2030.

Also responding to the BMA’s report, Deborah Arnott, Chief executive of ASH:

“In order for tougher regulations to curb youth vaping to be put in place, the tobacco and vapes bill must be fast tracked on to the statue book.

We support strict regulations of the display and promotion of vapes and prohibiting use of sweet names, bright colours and cartoon imagery. However, vapes are a highly effective quitting aid for smokers, and it is important that they continue to be so.”

Big Boss of UK Vaping Industry Calls BMA Deluded

John Dunne, Director General of vaping trade body, the UKVIA, said:

“Stronger measures are needed to cut off the supply of youth vaping and illicit products, however, actions laid out in this report would sooner supercharge the black market and push the nation’s smokefree ambitions further out of reach by deterring adult smokers from making the switch and driving current vapers into the hands of underground sellers or back to cigarettes.

The BMA undersells the quitting power of vapes when it says the reduced risk alternative ‘can be useful in helping some people to stop smoking.’ The latest data from leading public health charity Action on Smoking and Health UK found more than half of ex-smokers in Great Britain who quit in the past five years used a vape in their last attempt – ASH also reports that current and every use of vapes amongst 11-17-year-olds has decreased in since last year.

If the BMA wants to see underage and illicit vape sales stopped, it should join the industry in calling for the introduction of a first-of-its-kind licensing scheme which would prevent inappropriate businesses – including sweet shops – from selling these products, bring into play stronger penalties for those caught flouting the law and generate upwards of £50 million in annual, self-sustaining funding which could be used to empower under resourced Trading Standards.”

During his interview on BBC Radio Merseyside, Dunne added that the BMA were ‘deluded’ if they thought banning all non-tobacco flavours would help adult smokers quit.

“Vapes are by far the most popular way for adult smokers to quit in the UK. Saying that the only flavour which should be available is tobacco is like sending an alcoholic into a pub. The BMA is absolutely deluded if it wants to ban all flavours.

Why would you want someone who is coming away from tobacco to be reminded, every time they vape, that they are a smoker? That is only dooming them to failure. When people move away from smoking, they use flavoured products so as not to associate vaping with either cigarette smoking or tobacco.

The Government must consider the scientific evidence behind vaping when making new regulations and must not simply take what they consider to be the moral high ground. It is easy to introduce bans and flavour restrictions but everywhere this has been tried, these measures fail miserably and serve only to send vapers back to smoking.”