Disposable vapes: should Sunak stub them out?

Vaping has always seemed like a bad idea to me, said Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph. 

It's surely only a matter of time before scientists discover that it's more dangerous than we think. So I'm delighted that Rishi Sunak is taking steps to prevent children from adopting the habit.  

'An incontrovertibly good thing'

This week, the Government announced plans to ban disposable vapes by the end of 2025, and to restrict the range of sweet e-cigarette flavours, and ban colourful packaging, to reduce vaping's appeal to the young. This reform – which will be twinned with previously announced legislation making it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born after 2008 – is an "incontrovertibly good thing", said The Telegraph's Walden.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

This is one Tory policy I can get behind, agreed Ellie Harrison in The Independent. Vapes were designed to help adults quit smoking, but instead they're hooking a new generation on nicotine: youth vaping has tripled in the past three years. This is harming children and damaging the environment. It's estimated that you could cover 22 football pitches with all the disposable vapes chucked away each year in the UK.

'Sunak's most lasting legacy'

"Obviously, children shouldn't vape," said Mark Wallace in The i Paper. But it's already illegal for under-18s to buy these devices. Shouldn't we try "better enforcement or more vigilant parenting" before rushing to create yet more laws?

"Banning adults from buying products because minors sometimes buy them illegally has never been a principle of UK law," said Christopher Snowdon in The Spectator. Approximately 2.6 million adults use disposable vapes in Britain. What will they do when these devices are banned and the choice of e-cigarette flavours is restricted? Many will switch to refillable models and new flavours, but studies suggest many will switch to cigarette smoking, which will be far worse for their health. Hence why the pressure group Action on Smoking opposes the Government's reform. 

Tory rebels have criticised the proposed law as an example of nanny statism, said Stephen Bush in the FT, but voters – who tend to be "very fond of bans" – will welcome the move, so it's hard to imagine any future government reversing it. These measures will "almost certainly be Sunak's most lasting legacy on the UK".