Stick that in your pipe and smoke it

Responding to a government consultation

No one really knows why Rishi Sunak decided to make tobacco prohibition a cornerstone of his prime ministerial agenda. It polls quite well, although the Conservative Party’s overall poll ratings have got worse since he announced it and the New Zealand government has since decided to repeal a similar policy. Sunak himself is now the least popular member of his own government in the eyes of Conservative members.

There is talk in Westminster that Sunak was personally persuaded by Chris Whitty (the Chief Medical Officer) who has been banging this drum for a while. Whitty then turned up at the Covid inquiry and laid into Sunak, nicknaming his Eat Out to Help Out scheme ‘Eat Out to Help the Virus’. I scratch your back, you knife mine.

Whatever the reason, Sunak is keen to get this daft policy onto the books before anybody thinks about it too carefully. A brief public consultation closes on Wednesday and I urge you to respond. It won’t take you long. Answers are limited to 300 words and you don’t have to answer all the questions. You don’t even have to write anything. You can just tick the ‘disagree’ or ‘agree’ boxes.

Here’s how I responded (with the questions in italics):

Prohibiting anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 from ever being sold tobacco products (and also from purchasing tobacco products, in Scotland) will impact children who are turning 14 or younger in 2023. Setting this date will mean the change in the law would come into effect in 3 to 4 years’ time from January 2027, when this group of children turns 18.

Do you agree or disagree that the age of sale for tobacco products should be changed so that anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 will never be legally sold (and also in Scotland, never legally purchase) tobacco products?

Incremental tobacco prohibition is arguably the most idiotic and illiberal policy any democratic government has devised in the twenty-first century. It manages to combine the hubris of Napoleon, the absurdity of late-period Caligula and the authoritarianism of the Taliban.

Among the many problems with this ridiculous idea is the delusion that prohibition actually prohibits people doing things. In practice, prohibition creates criminal black markets, reduces tax revenue and facilitates underage sales.

The last country to ban tobacco sales in the modern era was Bhutan, but that was repealed in 2021 because so many people were smuggling tobacco into the country that the government was concerned that they were spreading COVID-19. The smoking rate rose throughout the 17 years of prohibition and, by 2019, 22 per cent of Bhutanese 13-15 year olds were tobacco users. These teenagers had never known legal tobacco and by the UK government's naive logic, should have been a 'smoke-free generation'.

The only other country, such as it was, to have experimented with tobacco prohibition for a significant length of time in the 21st century was the Islamic State.

According to the ONS, 16.2% of 16 to 24 years have smoked cannabis in the past year. We don't even have a smoke-free generation for a product that has never been commercially available.

The government will argue that it will avoid the worst effects of prohibition by "grandfathering" in existing smokers, but once the absurdities of the "sinking lid" approach become apparent from 2026, the mendacious fanatics of the anti-smoking lobby will demand a "level playing field", i.e. outright prohibition, and the government will - as always - capitulate to them.

300 words is not enough to explain even a fraction of what is wrong with this policy so I direct you to this briefing.

Proxy sales refer to a person at or over the legal age of sale purchasing a product on behalf of someone under the legal age of sale. Proxy sales are prohibited under existing tobacco age of sale legislation. In this context, prohibiting proxy sales would mean that anyone born before 1 January 2009 would be prohibited from purchasing tobacco products on behalf of anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.

The question is redundant since the policy is abhorrent and should not go ahead. It doesn't matter whether proxy sales are banned or not. Older adults will have no moral objection to buying tobacco for younger adults because - and this is the point that the government overlooks - informed adults can decide for themselves whether they smoke or not and there is nothing the paternalistic fantasists at the Department of Health can do about it.

The following products would be in scope of the new legislation: 

• cigarettes

• cigarette papers

• hand rolled tobacco

• cigars

• cigarillos 

• pipe tobacco

• waterpipe tobacco products (for example shisha)

• chewing tobacco

• heated tobacco

• nasal tobacco (snuff)

• herbal smoking products 

This mirrors the current scope of age of sale legislation in England and Wales. Existing age of sale requirements in Scotland currently cover products consisting wholly or partly of tobacco and which are intended to be smoked, sniffed, sucked or chewed. Insofar as the products listed would not be within the scope of the existing restrictions, it is proposed that the scope of the Scottish legislation be expanded to include them.

The inclusion of snuff and cigarette papers in the proposal gives me hope insofar as it makes me wonder whether the whole thing may be an elaborate hoax. If so, well played. If not, is there an epidemic of teenage nasal snuff use of which I am unaware?

In the proposal as it stands, the government will be literally banning the sale of pieces of paper. It is difficult to find the words to describe how insane that is.

It is interesting that the proposal includes heated tobacco because it indicates that the government still does not understand the concept of tobacco harm reduction. It has given a reprieve - no doubt temporarily - to vapers because it appreciates that e-cigarettes are much less harmful than cigarettes and have an important role in smoking cessation, and yet it intends to ban heated tobacco products despite them fulfilling the same purpose. Future smokers - of whom there will be many, despite the Department of Health's prohibitionist delusions - will be prevented from legally switching to this safer alternative under the government's plans. The signalling effect to existing smokers will also be negative.

The government's justification for incremental prohibition is that smoking cigarettes is exceptionally harmful and yet it intends to ban products which are not exceptionally harmful, presumably just because it can. This is not a science-based endeavour. It is an ideological crusade.

It is currently a legal requirement for retail premises to display the following statement ‘it is illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under 18’. This requirement would need to be changed to align with the new age of sale.

Do you agree or disagree that warning notices in retail premises will need to be changed to read ‘it is illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009’ when the law comes into effect?

If you're going to introduce a ludicrous law, it makes sense to tell people about it. It is not as if any reasonable person would assume that such a law exists. Perhaps the notice could be written in various languages to help baffled tourists who are not aware that the British government has taken leave of its senses?

Do you agree or disagree that the UK Government and devolved administrations should restrict vape flavours?

Banning vape flavours is the favoured approach of the e-cigarette prohibitionist Michael Bloomberg who has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into anti-vaping advocacy worldwide.* The strategy is to present flavour restrictions as a minor piece of product regulation and hope that politicians don't realise that it is actually prohibition by the back door.

300 words is insufficient to explain how important a choice of flavours is in smoking cessation, but every survey shows that a large majority of ex-smokers of any age who switched to vaping use non-tobacco flavours. 'Tobacco' flavour does not actually taste like tobacco and many vapers, including me, strongly dislike it.

There is good evidence that flavoured vaping products assist adults in quitting smoking (e.g. https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/92xq8)

Several studies have shown that flavour bans lead to increased cigarette sales (e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853220300134 and https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4586701).

If the government wants more people to smoke, it should ban as many e-cigarette flavours as possible.

* As an aside, I note that this consultation asks respondents to declare direct or indirect funding from the tobacco industry, but does not ask about funding from Bloomberg front groups or the pharmaceutical industry.

Which option do you think would be the most effective way to restrict vapes to children and young people?

• Option 1: vapes must be kept behind the counter and cannot be on display, like tobacco products

• Option 2: vapes must be kept behind the counter but can be on display

Anything that deters people from using e-cigarettes is a de facto pro-smoking policy. That understanding should underpin everything the government does in this area. The biggest problem with e-cigarettes is that people of all ages think they are far more dangerous than they are. Applying tobacco-style regulation to them will only confirm that misperception in the minds of the public.

Which option do you think would be the most effective way for the UK Government and devolved administrations to restrict the way vapes can be packaged and presented to reduce youth vaping?

• Option 1: prohibiting the use of cartoons, characters, animals, inanimate objects, and other child friendly imagery, on both the vape packaging and vape device. This would still allow for colouring and tailored brand design

• Option 2: prohibiting the use of all imagery and colouring on both the vape packaging and vape device but still allow branding such as logos and names

• Option 3: prohibiting the use of all imagery and colouring and branding (standardised packaging) for both the vape packaging and vape device

Since the consultation does not have an option for supporting the status quo, I have ticked Option 1. As previously mentioned, there is no objection to banning obviously child-friendly imagery, but that doesn't extend to showing "inanimate objects" on boxes.

Since when have inanimate objects been "child friendly imagery"? This highlights the slippery slope problem and the difficulty of drawing a line between something that appeals to a 17 year old and something that appeals to an 18 year old. As we saw with the campaign for plain packaging, the fanatics of the 'public health' industry think that mere logos and colours have a special appeal to youth. They can never be appeased.

If you disagree with regulating vape packaging, what alternative measures do you think the UK Government and devolved administrations should consider?

Enforce the laws that already exist.

Do you agree or disagree that there should be restrictions on the sale and supply of disposable vapes?

There are already restrictions on disposable vapes, as with all vapes. They can't be sold to minors and there are lots of EU regulations still in place. If you mean should there be *more* regulations applied specifically to disposable vapes, the answer is no.

35 per cent of adult vapers use disposables and a ban would result in some returning to smoking cigarettes.

Do you agree or disagree that restrictions on disposable vapes should take the form of prohibiting their sale and supply?

Banning a product because it is sometimes consumed by people who are already banned from buying it is a poor basis for legislation. We do not ban cider just because some teenagers drink it. We do not ban 18 certificate films because some teenagers watch them. We do not even ban cigarettes because some teenagers smoke them.

A much better approach would be for Trading Standards to get its act together and enforce the laws that already exist. We currently have retailers selling unregulated vapes illegally to minors. There is no point enacting further regulation when current regulations are being widely flouted.

Share your own thoughts with the government here.

Read my Alternative Smoke-Free 2030 plan here.