This week the public health minister Neil O'Brien announced a cluster of new initiatives, aimed towards reducing smoking in the UK, with a target to be smoke-free by 2030.
With this they will be offering 1 million smokers, a free Vaping starter kit, of which we very much hope to be apart of.
A vape enforcement squad will also be created to prevent illicit and underage sales, both of which we would welcome.
Our main concerns comes with a call on ideas to encourage quitting and preventing youth vaping. We fully support it in theory, we fear the wrong method will be applied to this and all vapers will feel the brunt of this, like other EU countries by reducing the amount of flavours available. Although it would send DIY into a frenzy, it's not the way to go about it. It does however favour a tax-system, which is their underlying aim, funny how they didn't publish that though?!
There is no doubt that these Disposables have made vaping more attractive to the youth of today, of which the 16-21 age bracket is the fastest growing, in vaping. But that does not mean grown adults, should not be able to Vape Sweet, Fruit or Dessert type flavours, which we fear will become the narrative before to-long.
Raising the age to 21 is a more sensible option to this.
Maybe even banning disposables altogether would be a better option, as lets face it, they're not the most eco friendly of creations, but with 1.3 million bars being sold in the UK every week, this again leans towards a tax-system being introduced with restrictive flavours.
Lets hope some of these ministers making the decisions, actually have first hand experience of the positive changes vaping can offer over smoking. It's our only hope when the likes of Kirstie Allsopp are banging the anti-vaping drum and calling for all flavoured vapes to be banned.
The Alchemist
