The mendacity of ASH

The state-funded lobbyists are only in it for themselves

In recent months, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) have been lobbying hard for every new regulation of vapes and other safer nicotine products proposed by the British government. Not only has it written an open letter to the health secretary to “express our strong support for the Government’s proposals on the packaging, appearance and display of tobacco, vapes and other nicotine products”, but it has been rallying its small group of supporters (some public sector workers and a few fanatics) to agree with every restriction in the public consultation even when ASH themselves don’t agree with them!

Using a rhetorical device that has served them well for 65 years, ASH portray this policy battle as being between “public health” and “industry”. In their letter, they say…

We urge the Government to reject the coordinated efforts of tobacco and vape manufacturers to weaken these proposals and preserve their ability to market products to children.

… We call on the Government to proceed with the proposals in full and send a clear message that public health, not industry interests, will determine the regulation of tobacco and nicotine products.

This has always been a dishonest and misleading binary view. The industry that will be worst affected by the new laws will be small retailers, specialist vape shops and convenience stores who will bear the brunt of the £1,889 million of costs which the government’s own Impact Assessment says will be incurred.¹ Since businesses have no money except that which they get from consumers, it is consumers who will ultimately pay. (The costs of the tobacco and vapes industry are not even included in the Impact Assessment!)

And if you care about the health of consumers, which ASH don’t, creating parity between the most dangerous and least dangerous nicotine products is the last thing you want when the public are already catastrophically misinformed about the relative risks.

ASH’s only reference to consumers comes when they complain about them responding to the consultation…

Some vape industry and consumer groups are mobilising opposition to the proposed vape regulations through the ‘SaveVaping’ campaign and lobbying through the media.

… This risks skewing the consultation responses and could undermine the Government’s ability to use other powers in the Tobacco and Vapes Act.

The Save Vaping campaign is run by the New Nicotine Alliance (NNA), an impecunious grassroots organisation that campaigns for effective health policies. They are very strict about not taking money from industry, but that doesn’t stop ASH lumping them in with industry trade groups.

The NNA has responded to ASH’s repelling yet telling comments, saying…

…it is extremely disappointing that ASH has chosen to imply that consumers taking part in the democratic process is somehow wrong. As a reminder, according to government statistics, there are approximately 9 million users of nicotine products (smokers, vapers, dual users etc). That’s 9 million total stakeholders. Why should their participation be criticised?

When ASH tells people to respond to a government consultation, that is apparently legitimate advocacy. But when consumer organisations encourage people to respond, it is suddenly described as “industry mobilisation”, an extraordinary double standard.

Consumers are not only legitimate stakeholders, but they should also be the most important ones.

ASH are not stakeholders at all. The only true stakeholders are people who buy the product and people who sell the product. Hating a product doesn’t make you a stakeholder. Having a fetish for regulation doesn’t make you a stakeholder. ASH has a stake in ensuring that the government keeps giving it lots of taxpayers’ money to fund its endless campaigns, but that is another matter.

ASH have had many millions from the state since it was created in 1971 and have never been able to attract more than a negligible sum from the public in donations. However, last year, for the first time in their history, they got nothing from any government body. In their annual accounts, they note that this is a risk to their survival but that they “continue with work to maintain good and friendly relations with key political and civil service decision makers”. In July, the government created a £450,000 Tobacco and Vapes Implementation Grant which seems tailor made for ASH (only charities can apply).

It is in this context that you should view ASH’s sudden devotion to anti-vaping policies which they have never campaigned for and, in some instances, used to oppose. When the government first proposed a ban on disposable vapes, ASH said it would disadvantage mental health patients, elderly smokers and those who have dexterity issues. They said that “the risk of unintended consequences is too great for us to support a ban”.

But once it was clear that the government was serious about the ban, this supposedly “independent” charity dropped its objections and, when it came into force last year, ASH called it “a step in the right direction”.

For several years, ASH have been calling on regulation to stop “cartoon characters, garish colours and sweet names” being used on vape packaging. I think this is a policy that most adult vapers could live with. ASH never called for plain packaging for vapes which is hardly surprising since they once insisted that the idea that “once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.” It was only in September 2025, after the then-health secretary Wes Streeting announced his desire to put vapes in plain packaging, that ASH came out in favour of this policy. I can find no record of them ever supporting a full display ban for vapes and, as the image above shows, they still don’t. They say, quite rightly, that treating cigarettes and vapes as if they were equally dangerous “risks undermining the role of vapes for smoking cessation”. You’d think that smoking cessation would be a priority for an anti-smoking group, but they are urging their supporters to support a full ban anyway because that’s what the government wants to hear.

These people are amoral grifters. They have achieved everything an anti-smoking group could dream of and now exist purely to ensure their own preservation. They were always going to throw vapers under the bus, but their attack on a real health charity (the NNA) is a new low. ASH are cynical, unprincipled agents of the state that who say anything to keep the grant cheques rolling in.

The consultation closes on Friday. If you are a genuine stakeholder, go and “skew the responses”.

1. £817.4m for the display ban, £330.8m for plain packaging for heated tobacco, £99.5m for plain packaging for cigars, etc., and £641.1m for plain packaging for safer nicotine products.