NNA: UK Government’s Green Paper Detrimental To Public Health

Source from:  VapingPost 09/19/2019

Earlier this month, reported the NNA, the Cabinet Office and Department of Health and Social Care joint-released their intentions in a Green Paper, reportedly forced through by Theresa May the advice of her Secretary of State.

“We are setting an ambition to go ‘smoke-free’ in England by 2030. This includes an ultimatum for industry to make smoked tobacco obsolete by 2030, with smokers quitting or moving to reduced risk products like e-cigarettes,” read the Government’s Green Paper. In response to this statement the NNA said that while it welcomes the initiative and the recognition safer alternatives’ potential, aspects of this paper are problematic.

“While it is welcome that the government has exhibited confidence in reduced risk products, these proposals are extremely problematic and fail to understand the regulatory landscape, as well as the appeal of products like e-cigarettes which have been so effective at drawing smokers away from combustible tobacco. They should be revisited, if not scrapped in their entirety.

It is implied that a first ever developed world ban on smoking is on the cards. This is not only a dangerously naïve idea but could further distance current smokers from considering vaping as an option. Many smokers are suspicious of vaping because they feel it may just be a tool that government might use to coerce them into quitting; these proposals simply reinforce that fear.

For years, we have seen perception of the relative safety of vaping decline, and an idea such as this may dispel that amongst some smokers, but many more will see this as use of a stick instead of a carrot and reject it.

It is the quit or die mantra all over again but with added menace. Before, smokers were told they should use pharmaceutical products or else be abandoned to a lifetime of smoking, but they were free to make that choice. The suggestion now is more sinister. They are being told quit or we will force you to quit because we will make your chosen products illegal.

One reason that e-cigarettes have been successful since they went mainstream about seven years ago is that they are not seen as coercive. Smokers feel they are making their own choice rather than being forced into it. The same effect has been seen in Scandinavia where snus has transformed nicotine consumption to the point that lit tobacco use is becoming a rarity. Government has not encouraged the use of snus, nor mandated it, but smokers have chosen to use far safer snus instead.

If politicians want to see increased uptake of safer nicotine substitutes for smoking, they should do so by optimising the choice of alternatives such as e-cigarettes, snus and heat not burn products, not by the blunt tool of coercion and prohibition. A policy like that suggested in the Green Paper would instantly remove the allure of safer products for many smokers.  Enditem