IBVTA responds to Sunday Times article on calls to ban flavoured vape products in Scotland

An article titled “SNP ‘should outlaw sweet vapes’” was recently published by The Sunday Times. The IBVTA has written a letter to the Editor correcting vital omissions in the article. We have also sent a copy to relevant political and public health stakeholders in Scotland.

The Sunday Times article “SNP ‘should outlaw sweet vapes’” misses the most important point about flavours in e-cigarettes.

Flavours are one of the very reasons that e-cigarettes have become the most effective and popular way of quitting smoking in the UK. Government reports show that only around 25% of adults use tobacco flavour e-cigarettes and e-liquids across the UK market. Our members report customer preference for non-tobacco flavours of between 78% and 90%. Sweet fruit and confectionery flavours are by far the most popular, often in brightly coloured devices.

Strictly enforced “Challenge 25” policies, and rigorous 3rd party age verification for online sales used by these responsible independent vape businesses, tell us these features are important to many adults that want a safer alternative to smoking.

China’s ban on non-tobacco e-liquid flavours is taken out of context in the article, as it was a small part of a much larger action. China’s government controls their national tobacco industry as a state-owned monopoly, and earlier this year brought all nicotine-containing products including e-cigarettes within the monopoly. Despite manufacturing the bulk of vaping devices for the rest of the world, vaping had not yet taken off in the Chinese home market. It will only be allowed to do so in tightly controlled “baby steps”, for fear of a tobacco market that serves over 300 million regular smokers collapsing. They cannot afford for vaping to become attractive to smokers too quickly, and flavours would likely help far too much with that.

The reality so far is that we have seen an increase in vaping in young people in Great Britain from 4% to 7% from 2021 to 2022, which we should be concerned by. However, we should also be aware that e-cigarette use among young people is almost entirely confined to current or former smokers. 92.2% of 11-17 year olds that have never smoked, have either never used an e-cigarette, or are not even aware of them. 0.5% of 11-17 year old “never smokers” use e-cigarettes more than once a week.

While this small but concerning trend works itself out, adult smoking rates in the UK have continued to fall to their lowest levels in living memory. Flavoured e-cigarettes and e-liquids are widely recognised as a big part of that story.

While we applaud ASH Scotland’s call to do the right things to restrict youth uptake, banning appropriate marketing and product freedom for the vape sector risks throwing the baby out with the bath water. Vape products should be treated like any other age restricted product that has a risk of inappropriate youth appeal, and that is with strictly enforced age verification.