The UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) has unveiled its Enough is Enough campaign featuring a ten-point Fair Deal for Vaping, as it warns that Government policy risks undermining vaping as an effective tool for helping smokers quit.
UKVIA has urged adult vapers, former smokers and their families to back its Fair Deal, highlighting that 52% of adult smokers now incorrectly believe vaping is as harmful as, or more harmful than, smoking. The group claimed that protecting children and tackling illegal traders should not mean punishing responsible businesses, the millions of adults who use vaping to quit and stay smoke-free or the millions more who have yet to make the switch. The campaign is encouraging supporters to contact their MPs, share their personal experiences of smoking and vaping, and encourage friends and family to support its ten commitments ask of government.
The Fair Deal for Vaping has called on Government to:
1) Tell the truth about vaping and smoking through a public information campaign: to make sure smokers understand the significant difference in relative risk.
2) Do not hide regulated vapes from view: avoid treating regulated vaping products like cigarettes at the point of sale.
3) Accelerate vape retail licensing: use licensing to distinguish responsible retailers from rogue operators and help fund effective enforcement.
4) Drive rogue traders out of business: introduce meaningful sanctions for those repeatedly selling illicit products or selling to children.
5) Recognise responsible vape shops as community assets: acknowledge their role in supporting adult smokers seeking alternatives to cigarettes.
6) Allow responsible communication with adults: enable licensed businesses to provide factual, age-appropriate information through tightly controlled adult channels.
7) Remove child-oriented branding – not all branding: eliminate disproportionately child-appealing imagery, without imposing cigarette-style plain packaging.
8) Protect adult flavour choice: target descriptions designed to appeal to children without removing flavours used by adult smokers and vapers.
9) Strengthen and expand Swap to Stop-type initiatives: maintain nationally backed access to vaping starter kits and behavioural support for smokers seeking to quit.
10) Review the Vaping Products Duty: assess the hike in price this brings and its impact on affordability, smoking relapse and the illicit market before it undermines the financial incentive to move away from cigarettes.
John Dunne, Director General of the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA), said: “Enough is enough. Vapers and responsible vaping businesses understand the need for regulation, and we wholeheartedly support tough action to stop children accessing vapes and to drive rogue traders selling illegal products out of business.
“But there comes a point where regulation stops being proportionate and begins to undermine the very public health objective it is supposed to support.
“The NHS says vaping is less harmful than smoking and one of the most effective tools available to help smokers quit, yet more than half of smokers now wrongly believe vaping is at least as harmful as cigarettes. If regulated vapes are hidden from sight, put into plain packaging, increasingly prevented from communicating with adult smokers and made substantially more expensive, we have to ask what message that sends.
“We are particularly concerned that responsible specialist vape shops are increasingly being treated in the same way as the rogue traders that our industry has spent years calling for tougher action against. They are not the same and Government policy must recognise that distinction.
“Our Fair Deal is not a demand for less protection for children. It is a demand for smarter regulation. Regulation that comes down much harder on illegal traders while ensuring that adult smokers continue to have access to regulated products, accurate information and responsible specialist retailers.
“We want every vaper, every former smoker and every person whose family has been affected by smoking to make their voice heard. Tell your MP why this matters.”
