UKVIA Responds to RCPCH Ban Call
The UK Vaping Industry Association has reacted to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health call to ban disposable vapes
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by Dave Cross
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UKVIA says that vaping products, whether designed to be single or multiple use devices, are age-gated products, such as alcohol or aerosol spray paints and should never be sold to children. This is an access issue not a product issue.
The answer, UKVIA explains, is not to ban any category of vape device and deny adult vapers effective choices, “especially those in high smoking, low-income areas but to ensure that the regulations are robust enough and the penalties severe enough to ensure that rogue retailers are discouraged from selling to minors in the first place.”
The trade organisation says: “That is why the UKVIA has, for the last two years, been calling on the government to clamp down hard on this issue by introducing measures including:
- “On-the-spot fines of at least £10,000 per instance for those caught selling to young people or selling illegal products (up from £2,500 maximum)
- “A retail registration scheme that would ensure retailers meet strict standards before they are permitted to sell vapes including robust age verification processes
- “A national test purchasing effort to ensure those selling vapes under the registration scheme aren’t supplying minors, a scheme similar to what the UKVIA does with its own members, and we are pleased that this was recently announced by Health Minister Neil O’Brien as part of new measures to crackdown on underage sales.”
UKVIA Director General John Dunne said: “There is no doubt that strong, targeted action directed at those illegally selling vape products to children is the way forward. Vitally, any youth prevention measures cannot be to the detriment of adult smokers looking to quit through vaping and vapers who want to avoid a return to smoking.”
On the environmental impact, the UKVIA is calling on the government to increase the maximum e-liquid volume of devices from 2ml to 10ml (while keeping nicotine concentration the same) as this would reduce the numbers of used single-use devices by 80%.
“Many people don’t know that many components in single use devices are recyclable,” UKVIA concludes, “and we want the government to address the lack of current waste infrastructure to allow this to happen in conjunction with a public awareness campaign to discourage these devices from being thrown away.”
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous vape companies to develop content for their websites.
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