The Guardian view on vapes: Rishi Sunak is right that rules need tightening
Rishi Sunak’s plans for a ban on disposable vapes, along with restrictions on fruit-flavoured varieties and marketing, should deliver benefits both for public health and the environment. With Labour MPs generally more in favour than his own, the necessary legislation is expected to pass easily. Combined with last year’s announcement of restrictions on the sale of cigarettes, the new policy is a significant departure for a government that has refused to limit other forms of harmful consumption, most notably sugar, which causes obesity.
With a general election approaching, it seems likely that Mr Sunak, who is a fitness enthusiast and fasts every Monday, has an eye on his legacy. He wants to be remembered as a leader who made the country more healthy and took seriously the problem of plastic waste. Previous measures in both areas have been passed on a cross-party basis and rarely repealed. Mr Sunak has identified a reform that could earn him credit with two groups – environmentalists and public health campaigners – who have often been among his fierce critics.
The approach to vaping by British policymakers has, since its inception, been markedly different from that in other countries. San Francisco became the first US city to ban e-cigarettes following a wave of concern about their heavy use by teenagers. In the UK, by contrast, public health experts promoted the use of nicotine vape pens as a healthier alternative to smoking. But as the habit has taken hold not only among former smokers but also people who have never smoked, public and professional awareness of the downsides has grown.
These include the creation of a new source of plastic waste – particularly unwelcome given efforts to reduce this through the introduction of bag charges and other measures – and unknown long-term health risks. But probably most important to politicians and the public is the fact that children as young as 11 are becoming addicted to cheap nicotine products made attractive to them by the addition of sweet flavourings – in a pattern with resemblances to what happened with alcopops 20 years ago.
With data last year showing that the number of young women aged 16 to 24 vaping daily more than tripled in 12 months, and reports of 40 children hospitalised due to vaping-related illness, it was clear that the signals from health experts and the rules for manufacturers and retailers needed to change.
With the announcement that disposable vapes will be outlawed, that shift is now under way. There is no question that vapes are less harmful than cigarettes, but new rules around presentation should mean they are no longer portrayed as harmless. At the same time, a proposed ban on the sale of tobacco to anyone born in 2009 or later – which would be achieved by gradually raising the smoking age – would give the UK some of the toughest smoking laws in the world.
Views differ on whether or not it makes sense to regulate tobacco as strictly as this. While there is an undoubted public health case for doing so, the contrast with the approach taken by ministers to sugar and alcohol is stark. Public as well as parliamentary debate on this question should be encouraged – while efforts to prevent children and young people from taking up vaping should receive the widest support.