Tag: United Kingdom

U.K. Smoking Levels at All Time Low

Photo: be free
U.K. smoking levels have fallen to just 13.3 percent—the lowest since records began—according to new government data that says vaping played a “major role” in the decline.
The latest data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that the smoking rate for 2021 is down from the previous low of 14 percent in 2020, which means that there are around 6.6 million smokers in the U.K.
The ONS said this was the lowest proportion of current smokers since records started in 2011, based on estimates from the Annual Population Survey.
The report said: “Vaping devices such as e-cigarettes have played a major role in the decrease in smoking prevalence in the U.K.
“In this bulletin, we have reported an increase in e-cigarette use, and organizations such as Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) have reported similar increases in e-cigarettes (vapes) usage among adults in Great Britain.”
In the U.K. as a whole, 15.1 percent of men and 11.5 percent of women smoked, a trend that has been consistent since 2011.
The 25–34 age group had the highest proportion of current smokers (15.8 percent) while those aged 65 and over came in lowest (8 percent).
People without qualifications were more likely to be current smokers (28.2 percent) than those whose highest level of education was a degree or equivalent (6.6 percent).
Among respondents to the ONS survey, 7.7 percent said they currently used an e-cigarette daily or occasionally.
According to the authors, this equates to around 4 million adults in the population, an increase on the estimate from 2020, when 6.4 percent of people reported daily or occasional e-cigarette use.

“This is absolutely fantastic news, and I am delighted that the U.K.’s vaping industry is playing its part in making this happen.”
John Dunne, director general, UKVIA
Tobacco harm reduction advocates were elated by the decline in smoking. “This is absolutely fantastic news, and I am delighted that the U.K.’s vaping industry is playing its part in making this happen,” said John Dunne, director general of the U.K. Vaping Industry Association, in a statement.
“The government must now redouble its efforts to ensure that it gets its 2030 smoke-free ambitions back on track so that smoking can finally be consigned to history.”
Dunne said stakeholders should capitalize on the momentum by reaching out to remaining smokers and giving them the facts that they need to make the switch to vaping. “We must allow vape companies to use agreed health claims and switching messages to encourage adult smokers to switch to e-cigarettes and make full use of the different methods of communication available to the government and public health bodies,” he said.
December 7, 2022
Vape Sector Boosts U.K. Economy: Report

Photo: VPZ
The vape industry has had a considerable positive impact on the U.K. economy, according to a new report compiled by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) on behalf of the U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA).
Valued at £2.8 billion ($3.36 billion) in 2021, the U.K. vape sector supports almost 18,000 full-time-equivalent jobs in retail, manufacturing and supply chain. What’s more, smokers abandoning cigarettes in favor of less harmful e-cigarettes have saved the National Health Service (NHS) more than £300 million in 2019 alone, according to the report.
Even as many businesses suffered in recent years, vape retail stores have bucked the trend and represent one of the biggest growing sectors since the first decade of the 21st century when they started to appear for the first time.
From 2017 to 2021, the U.K. vape sector’s turnover grew by 23.4 percent to £1.33 billion last year alone. When indirect economic benefits such as supply chain support and the spending power of vape sector workers is factored in, the economic impact more than doubles.
In 2021, the vaping industry paid £310 million in taxes to the British exchequer.
CEBR estimates that the vaping sector saved the U.K. £322 million in smoking-related healthcare costs in 2019. The research organization reckons that if 50 percent of smokers switched to vaping, the potential healthcare savings would have been £698 million in 2020.
Meanwhile, the gain in economic productivity associated with smokers switching to using vaping products was estimated to be £1.3 billion in 2019. If 50 percent of remaining U.K. smokers switched to vaping, this would increase to £3.33 billion, according to the study.

“In little over a decade, vaping in the U.K. has grown from very much a ‘cottage industry’ to one of the fastest growing sectors in not just retail but the whole economy.”
John Dunne, director general, UKVIA
“The findings of the vaping industry’s first ever economic impact report demonstrates its significant success as a fast-growing disruptive sector,” says Owen Good, head of economic advisory at CEBR.
“Whilst many high street retailers have suffered in recent years, the vaping sector has bucked the trend, with significant growth both in-store and online. Even the effects of the pandemic have not significantly hampered the sector’s growth.
“The sector’s growth has been hugely beneficial to the U.K. economy; businesses and their employees directly involved in the industry and those running operations across the wider supply chain; and the NHS, which has seen a massive cost saving with increasing numbers of smokers switching to vaping in order to quit their habits.”
“In little over a decade, vaping in the U.K. has grown from very much a ‘cottage industry’ to one of the fastest growing sectors in not just retail but the whole economy,” said UKVIA Director General John Dunne in a statement.
“More people than ever are vaping, and by all measures, this is a true British success story, creating employment and wealth, generating precious revenue for the government through taxation while at the same time saving the NHS more than £300 million a year through people switching from smoking to vaping.”
November 29, 2022
Elfbar Warns of Fake Vapes

Photo: Elfbar
Potentially dangerous counterfeit disposable vaping products are flooding into the U.K. market, according to an investigation by Elfbar, a Chinese manufacturer. The company warns retailers and consumers that the illegal products are produced in “squalid Chinese factories with no license for manufacturing and regard for product safety.”
Since June 2021, Elfbar has cracked down on more than 120 counterfeit production and sales targets, including factories, warehouses, logistics and foreign trade companies. Its actions have resulted in the seizure of more than 2 million finished counterfeit Elfbar products, millions of packaging boxes, anti-counterfeit codes, semi-finished vaping pipes and other accessories, according to the company.
Elfbar CEO Victor Xiao said consumers would be horrified if they saw the conditions in which these products are made. “The criminals behind these counterfeit products care nothing about product safety or the health of consumers, and they cut every corner possible to maximize their profits,” he said in a statement. “Quite frankly, the conditions in these factories are absolutely squalid, where workers man production lines in filthy conditions with no regard to hygiene at all.”
Elfbar said that manufacturers and retailers have an important role in protecting consumers.
“While it can be hard to tell a fake product from the real thing just by looking at it, there is no excuse for any retailer to sell a counterfeit Elfbar product. Retailers can scan a code on the packaging to check the authenticity of the product, and we urge them to do this for every product they sell,” Xiao said.
John Dunne, director general of the U.K. Vaping Industry Association, applauded Elfbar for standing up against the counterfeiters.
“They pose a significant risk to the harm reduction reputation of the global vaping industry,” he said. “It’s why we have called for a retail licensing scheme here in the U.K. to prevent the sale of illicit products and much higher penalties of at least £10,000 [$12,058] per instance for retailers who break the law in this way,” he said. “Similarly, the counterfeiters and those who trade fake vapes along the supply chain need dealing with in a way by the relevant authorities that put them off from doing it ever again.”
November 29, 2022
Ploom X Debuts in the United Kingdom
Photo: JTI
Japan Tobacco International has launched its Ploom X heated-tobacco device at select locations in the United Kingdom, the company announced in a press release. This product is now available in the Greater London area, at pop-up stores in Shoreditch, online nationwide and in selected online vape stores.
According to JTI, Ploom X represents the cutting edge of the next generation of heated-tobacco products. Technological upgrades include:
A redesigned “HeatFlow” system and a higher heating temperature to ensure a more consistent nicotine delivery and a more enhanced flavor delivery;
One easy-to-use heating mode;
Adjustments to the airflow system enabling a more consistent vapor delivery and increased vapor volume;
Session times of up to 5 minutes and the ability to use more EVO tobacco sticks per charge, with up to 22 sessions with one charge; and
A smaller and more compact device. Users can customize the device with colorful magnetic front panels.
According to JTI, Ploom X reduces the level of nine smoke constituents by an average of 90 percent to 95 percent.
Ploom devices are designed to be used exclusively with EVO tobacco sticks, which contain a tobacco blend made from microground and fine-cut tobacco.
With 20 sticks in a pack and a recommended retail price of £4.50, EVO costs less than half the price of a pack of cigarettes in the U.K. EVO tobacco sticks are available in classic tobacco, menthol, and fruit and menthol infusions. The company also offers capsule variants that offer consumers the option to release an additional burst of flavor.
“The launch of Ploom X marks a milestone in JTI’s story and also sets a new paradigm in the heated-tobacco category,” said JTI Director of Marketing Mark McGuinness. “Ploom X is a truly innovative product that will exceed consumer expectations, making their tobacco moments even more pleasurable and truly unique.”
November 3, 2022
Think Tank Publishes Alternative Strategy
Christopher Snowdon
Ahead of the Nov. 3 parliamentary debate on the independent review of smoke-free 2030 policies, the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) has published an alternative strategy to reduce the smoking rate in England, titled The Alternative Smoke-Free 2030 Plan.
This approach stands in contrast with the recent Khan Review, which recommended banning the sale of cigarettes over time. Report author Christopher Snowdon argues that as long as demand exists—only 53 percent of British smokers say they want to quit—prohibitionist policies will result in endemic black market activity, crime and secondary poverty without eradicating smoking.
The alternative 12-point plan emphasizes the success of vaping and other safer alternatives in getting people off cigarettes. In Britain, where 9.3 percent of adults now vape, the smoking rate has dropped from 20 percent to 14 percent since 2012, according to the IEA. In the EU, where only 2 percent of adults vape, smoking prevalence fell by just 1 percent between 2014 and 2020. As of this year, 28 percent of smokers have never even tried an e-cigarette. Removing barriers to consumers accessing low-risk nicotine alternatives is vital.
Snowdon, the IEA’s head of lifestyle economics, recommends that the government tackle pervasive misinformation about the risks of e-cigarettes. Currently, 40 percent of English smokers falsely believe that nicotine causes cancer, and the number of smokers who wrongly think that vaping is as or more dangerous than smoking rose from 36 percent to 53 percent between 2014 and 2020. This is despite the fact that the Royal College of Physicians concluded that the long-term risks are “unlikely to exceed 5 percent of the harm from smoking tobacco.” The government should ensure that public health bodies promote the benefits of vaping relative to smoking.
Snowdon also proposes that the government embrace the freedom provided by Brexit to reform the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). Article 20 of the TPD exacts punitive regulations on e-cigarettes, covering everything from advertising to the size of refillable vape tanks. According to Snowdon, cutting this red tape will lift powerful barriers to access.
Smokers could also be encouraged to quit by reducing the red tape burdens on other low-risk tobacco alternatives such as snus, heated-tobacco and nicotine pouches. These products are subjected to overzealous regulation, with snus outlawed in the U.K.
The U.K. has generally regulated e-cigarettes sensibly, according to the IEA. But with a greater focus on articulating the benefits of switching to low-risk tobacco alternatives and relaxing the associated regulatory regime, smoking may truly become obsolete, the think tank argues.
“The government’s plan to slash the smoking rate to 5 percent by 2030 is wholly unrealistic unless smokers switch to low-risk alternatives in large numbers,” says Snowdon. “Fortunately, a growing range of alternatives exist. All the government needs to do is create a regulatory environment in which they can flourish and ensure that smokers are not misled by fake news. There are a dozen simple, low-cost reforms that could be implemented that would help the government meet its health objectives without persecuting smokers.”
November 2, 2022
Liz Truss’ Chief of Staff Recuses Himself from Smoking Policy Talks

Photo: Vitalii Vodolazskyi
The chief of staff to U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss has recused himself from discussions about changes to the government’s smoking strategy due to his past work as a tobacco industry lobbyist.
Mark Fullbrook, the prime minister’s most senior adviser, has worked on behalf of Philip Morris and BAT.
Fullbrook told Sky News he will have “no involvement whatsoever” in government smoking policy.
“Number 10 has questions to answer about the involvement of Mark Fullbrook and any other former lobbyists for Big Tobacco in the decision to drop plans to tackle smoking,” said Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
“The health secretary must also be clear about her own tobacco industry connections.”
According to The Guardian, Health Secretary Therese Coffey also intends to break her predecessor’s promise to publish an action plan to tackle smoking.
The paper writes that Coffey has previously accepted hospitality from the tobacco industry. Since becoming a Member of Parliament in 2010, she has voted in the House of Commons against an array of measures to restrict smoking, including the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces, the outlawing of smoking in cars containing children and forcing cigarettes to be sold in plain packs.
On Oct. 18, Coffey was unable to confirm if she was scrapping the plan. The Department of Health insists “no decisions have been taken.”
October 19, 2022
‘U.K. Unlikely to Act on Khan Report’

Photo: William Richardson
The U.K. government is unlikely to enact the actions recommended by Javed Khan in his recent report on smoking, according to an article in The Guardian citing insiders.
The British government has committed to make the country “smoke-free” by 2030. This is defined as getting the proportion of adults who smoke down from 14.1 percent to just 5 percent.
Published in June, Khan’s report says that ministers need to accelerate the reduction in smoking by 40 percent if they want to hit the 2030 target. Among other actions, he recommended raising the legal age of buying tobacco by a year every year and imposing a new “polluter pays” levy on tobacco firms and requiring sellers of tobacco products to have a license.
According to The Guardian, U.K. Health Secretary Therese Coffey also intends to break her predecessor’s promise to publish an action plan to tackle smoking.
The paper writes that Coffey has previously accepted hospitality from the tobacco industry. Since becoming a Member of Parliament in 2010, she has voted in the House of Commons against an array of measures to restrict smoking, including the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces, the outlawing of smoking in cars containing children and forcing cigarettes to be sold in plain packs.
The Department of Health and Social Care said it was “inaccurate” to suggest that the tobacco control plan was being dropped—but did not say if or when it would publish it.
Labour and anti-smoking campaigners voiced alarm at the potential U-turn over the tobacco control plan. It follows a Treasury-ordered review of measures to tackle obesity and Coffey scrapping a promised white paper on health inequalities.
October 13, 2022
Record Seizure of Illegal Cigarettes at Hull Port

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
British Customs authorities reported the largest-ever seizure of illegal tobacco in the United Kingdom when a sniffer dog found 99 million illicit cigarettes in the Port of Hull, reports BBC News.
The illegal products were in eight shipping containers said to have been shipped through the United Arab Emirates. The cigarettes were worth about £44 million ($48.56 million) in unpaid taxes, according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Import documents falsely labeled the shipping containers as carrying birchwood logs.
“This is the single largest seizure of cigarettes ever made at a U.K. port,” said Anthony Usher, deputy director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service. “Our streets would have been flooded with them had they not been discovered.
“Cheap cigarettes come at a cost as they often fund organized crime and other illegal activity that causes real harm to our communities, such as drugs, guns and human trafficking.”
October 10, 2022
UKVIA Welcomes Vaping Evidence Review

John Dunne (Photo: UKVIA)
The U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) welcomed the first vaping evidence review published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).
The latest vaping review builds on evidence collected by its predecessor, Public Health England (PHE), and further highlights the role that vaping can play in improving public health.
“It’s good to see that the experts involved in this latest review stand by the estimates that vaping is ‘at least 95 percent less harmful’ than combustible tobacco and that it ‘poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking,’” said UKVIA Director General John Dunne in a statement.
“This figure was first revealed by the then PHE in 2015 in what was at the time described as a landmark review, and the statement that vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking on the back of this statistic continues to be cited by all the leading public health organizations in the U.K. today.
“Particularly welcoming is the evidence that indicates significantly lower relative exposure from vaping compared to smoking in biomarkers that are associated with the risk of cancer, respiratory conditions, cardiovascular conditions and other health conditions’ which lead to tens of thousands of deaths every year, not to mention the high levels of those suffering from debilitating smoking-related illnesses.”
Dunne also welcomed the review’s focus on youth vaping, which he said is currently at unacceptable levels.
“Our own Youth Access Prevention taskforce is working tirelessly with Trading Standards, the retail sector and brand owners to prevent youth access to vaping. We have recently sent the Department for Health and Social Care a number of recommendations, which are designed to cut the sale of vapes to minors off at the source. These include the introduction of a retail licensing or approved retailer and distributor scheme; increased penalties of at least £10,000 per instance for traders who flout U.K. law; and the introduction of a national test purchasing scheme to ensure all retail operations are performing to high standards when it comes to preventing youth access to e-cigarettes.”
October 4, 2022
Report: Vaping Less Harmful Than Smoking

Photo: Prostock-studio
Using vaping products rather than cigarettes leads to a substantial reduction in exposure to toxicants that promote cancer, lung disease and cardiovascular disease, according to new research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.
Commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, the independent report represents the most comprehensive review of the risks of vaping to date. It found that, while vaping is not risk free—particularly for people who have never smoked—it poses a small fraction of the health risks of smoking in the short to medium term.
The report reviewed many aspects of vaping, including who is vaping and what products, the effects on health (both absolute and compared with smoking) and public perceptions of harm. The authors examined studies of biomarkers of exposure (measures of potentially harmful substance levels in the body) as well as biomarkers of potential harm (measures of biological changes in the body) due to vaping or smoking.
The strongest evidence came from biomarkers of exposure. An exploration of the available studies found that levels of tobacco specific nitrosamines, volatile organic compounds and other toxicants implicated in the main diseases caused by smoking were found at significantly lower levels in vapers. Among vapers, overall levels of nicotine were lower or similar to smokers.
When comparing biomarkers between people who vape and people who don’t smoke or vape, they were often similar, but in some cases there was higher exposure when vaping. The investigators therefore concluded that whilst less harmful than smoking, vaping is likely to sustain some risks particularly for people who have never smoked.
While the investigators are clear on the benefits of vaping vs smoking, they found that public perceptions are lagging behind. In 2021, only 34 percent of adults who smoked accurately perceived that vaping was less harmful than smoking, while only 11 percent of adult smokers knew that nicotine wasn’t the primary cause of the health risks connected to smoking tobacco.
Vaping has gained popularity among British adults. According to the latest data from the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Smokefree GB Adult survey, current vaping prevalence is 8.3 percent in 2022, compared with 7.1 percent in 2021 and 6.3 percent in 2020.
Vaping has also increased among young people. Data from the ASH Smokefree GB Youth survey of 11-to 18-year-olds in England show that current vaping prevalence (including occasional and regular) is 8.6 percent in 2022, compared with 4.0 percent in 2021 and 4.8 percent in 2020. Use of disposable vaping products has increased substantially over the last year. Vaping among young people who have never smoked remains very low at 1.7 percent.
“This important study is the latest in a series which carefully pulls together the science on vaping to help reduce the damage from smoking,” said Jeanelle DeGruchy, deputy chief medical officer for England, in a King’s College press note.
“Vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking so the message is clear, if the choice is between smoking and vaping, choose vaping. If the choice is between vaping and fresh air, choose fresh air.”
October 2, 2022