Sunak poised for total ban on throwaway e-cigarettes
DISPOSABLE vapes could be banned within months under plans published today.
A new crackdown on youth smoking will include proposals for a total ban on the throwaway devices, amid fears they risk hooking a new generation of youngsters on nicotine.
The idea is part of a wider plan to eliminate smoking in the long term. Rishi Sunak will today press ahead with a consultation on a radical proposal to phase out smoking by raising the legal age for buying cigarettes by one year, every year.
Anyone born after 2008 would never legally be able to buy a cigarette. Whitehall sources said the plan, unveiled by the Prime Minister at the Tory Party Conference last week, is likely to be included in next month’s King’s Speech.
Today’s consultation also includes wide-ranging proposals to clamp down on the use of vapes among children.
It is illegal to sell them to under-18s but social media is flooded with posts from teenagers showing coloured vapes and discussing flavours such as pink lemonade, strawberry,
‘Smoke-free generation’
banana and mango. Many contain addictive nicotine.
Disposable vapes, which cost as little as £3, have seen a surge in popularity among youngsters, with one in five secondary school pupils reported to have tried vaping this year. This number has trebled in the last three years.
Mr Sunak last night said: ‘Last week I promised to create the first smoke-free generation and I am wasting no time in delivering on that promise.
‘Our ambitious plans will reverse the worrying rise in youth vaping while protecting our children from the dangerous long-term effects of smoking as quickly as possible.’
Today’s proposals will introduce regulations to restrict the flavours, descriptions and packaging of e- cigarettes.
Retailers will have to keep them out of sight of children and away from products like sweets, and councils will be given powers to issue on-thespot fines to shops selling the gadgets to under-18s.
Ministers will consider whether to raise taxes on vapes to make them unaffordable for children. However, officials warned that they do not want to push them out of the reach of adult smokers.
Disposable vapes are set to face a total ban, partly on environmental grounds. The plastic devices contain a lithium battery and more than five million a week are discarded.
A Whitehall source said officials are working on a watertight legal definition of what constitutes disposable vapes.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty said: ‘Vaping can be useful for smokers to quit, but should not be marketed to non-smokers and marketing them to children is utterly unacceptable.’
The consultation will run for eight weeks and measures could be introduced next year.
Although health is a devolved issue, authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have taken the unusual step of agreeing to a joint consultation.