What could the UK's 2025 vaping ban look like?

In 2025, the UK is set to introduce strict new laws to restrict and control vaping. The aim is to create what’s called a smoke-free generation, and a large part of it will include a ban on the sale of single-use disposable vapes in England, Wales and Scotland. Here’s Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh…

Linda - So what the bill is going to do, it was previously proposed by the last UK government and has been brought back with the same powers, but also some additional amendments. So there's quite a long list. I'll be brief, I think the headline one is phasing out the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2009. But there's also quite a range of powers in this bill, which has passed its first readings. It's starting that stage into the other parts of the legislative process to also look at vaping. So vaping, as you and I have discussed before, is an important public health issue. Large numbers of young people who are vaping. So the bill is aiming to have powers to curb youth vaping. And that means doing things like prohibiting branding on vapes that appeal to children, some of the names and the colours and stopping handing out free vapes. Importantly regulating vape contents and flavors, and also looking at how they're displayed and promoted in shops. And then the last bit of this, which is actually a particular interest to me in my research, is a whole bunch of nicotine products that are not medicinally licensed, that are not covered by our existing vaping legislation like nicotine pouches, 'Snus' they're often called, and they'll fall within the bill as well.

Chris - Are they thought to attract the same kind of health dis-benefit as vaping and smoking, these other forms of nicotine use? Or should we be turning more of a blind eye to those and bearing down on the elephant in the room, which is the fact that vapes seem to have crept in, especially in the youth market, and seduced and basically hooked a whole legion of new nicotine addicts.

Linda - Yes, they have. And you're absolutely right. We have a continuum of risk. That's how I describe it. Actually, some of the other nicotine products, particularly nicotine pouches, so-called Snus. Snus is something else, but that's what people call them colloquially. I actually think they are really quite low risk because all you've got in there is the nicotine and, and some of the other ways that the product is packaged. These are things that we know are not harmful. They're also, it's also not breathed in the way you do with vaping, which is one of the reasons why we're concerned about vaping being far less harmful than smoking, but still risks we don't understand. So nicotine pouches are probably not something we should be terribly worried about, but the reason I think it's good to bring them into the legislation, or at least some of the measures in the legislation is because they're very addictive. And the other thing about the pouches is that the level of nicotine in them isn't regulated. And at the moment there's actually no age of sale. So we need to do something on the nicotine pouches. But you're right, if you look at where harm begins, nicotine replacement therapy, licensed medicine are very safe. But you know, some people can get a bit hooked on it through things like pouches, then through to vapes, and then through to the smoked cigarette, which is the most deadly. There's different risks associated with all of these products.

Chris - Are we not slamming the door after the horse has bolted on the vapes though, because it strikes me we're coming to this party so late. They've already got their tentacles into so many young people and we've actually seen rates of uptake go up, go flying up actually, and we are not even at the point where we've banned these things properly yet. China, even China, did it ages ago.

Linda - We do actually have a lot of legislation around vaping already, but clearly it hasn't been enough. And the problem has been that the products have evolved. So we've banned most forms of vaping advertising. We have an age of sale, we have enforcement, we have limits on the nicotine content. We have a health warning on the vape. You know, we did all of that stuff in 2016, but then disposable vapes came on the market, which are very cheap, very attractive. Disposable, as the name says, environmentally harmful. And they actually have been the major driver of youth uptake. So the horse has definitely bolted to the extent that we didn't do enough early enough. But I think taking additional action now will be okay. I would say banning them probably wouldn't be that successful. What the government aims to do with this bill is ban smoking in terms of selling it to children born after 2009. That's the deadliest product. But countries like Australia, which have made vapes only available on prescription have youth vaping rates almost as high as ours. So I think it's about proportional approaches and trying to keep ahead of industry evolution and the evolution of the products. I hope we can do it, but we have to be realistic.

Chris - Totally different topic, but health related. We've had various measures that have been brought in, I think something like 170 policies in the last about 30 years, by successive governments of all colours to try to control obesity, sugar tax included in them. That has got to be one of the health priorities for any year in the years ahead, hasn't it surely?

Linda - Absolutely. And actually I think you're going to see some changes in 2025, but they're not going to be enough for most of us in the public health community. What you're going to see in 2025, I'll just start with Scotland. We're committed to taking action in legislation on multibuys and temporary price promotions of junk food. The UK government is finally going to be bringing in its restrictions on advertising online and on television, particularly on TV in relation to the watershed. The problem is our food supply has changed. We've got big powerful companies that are making products, and it's changed both our diet, but also things like rates of cardiovascular disease, which we know some of the improvements we saw with productions in smoking are largely being reversed because of overweight and obesity. So I hope in 2025 we see more action. It's a public health priority and we need to begin to tackle it.