Tobacco and Vapes Bill: Clause 12

Northampton South MP Sarah Bool opened the debate by proposing an amendment that would allow the provision of vending machines dispensing vape products in mental health settings, referencing a letter she’d received from Peter Terry, a Smoke Free lead in a large Mental Health Trust in the North West of England.

Terry told her: “As you may be aware the success of hospitals and Trusts becoming smokefree environments (especially Mental Health units) is particularly challenging. Mental Health service users due to their conditions have little or no motivation to stop smoking. On the units of my trust the prevalence of smoking is consistently between 70-77%.”

He went on to add:

“To ensure we allow service users who are hospitalized a safer way to manage their nicotine addiction...my Trust would require Vending machines. These would allow service users to purchase a closed pod system device, which is a lot less harmful than tobacco smoking. On admission they would be offered either free NRT products or to purchase a vape as described above.”

This plea was echoed in another letter by a specialist at the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS foundation trust. His letter stated: “Since installation of the vending machines in our Trust we have had over 2400 individual vends. Each vend represents a staff or service user making a positive decision to improve their health. 2400 individual vends in just 6 months represents a saving to the Trust of around £12,000.”

He argued: “Removing the machines will reduce patients’ independence in buying their own devices while in hospital and will have a financial implication to our Trust, as wards would be expected to fund more vapes.”

It was noted that banning vending machines, as proposed under the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, would see patients returning to smoking.

Opposition Assistant Whip Gregory Stafford agreed with her: “The evidence that my hon. Friend has provided is from medical experts. These are not vape peddlers or people from the industry, or people who want to make a quick buck out of those who are addicted to nicotine. These are health professionals who are trying to ensure that there is a balance between what is absolutely right—we do not want to see people vaping—and the reality of the situation in medical settings, especially in mental health settings, where the ability for patients to have a certain amount of autonomy is often vital to their mental recovery.”

Sounds pretty positive and sensible, right? Step forward Tory Caroline Johnson. She was responsible for inserting the section banning vending machines from everywhere in the Conservative iteration of the Bill from earlier this year.

She said: “I was concerned that vending machines would be used by children to obtain vaping and nicotine products. That loophole in the law that would make it easy—as we have seen with cigarettes in the past—for youngsters to circumvent the age-restricted product legislation designed to protect them, by allowing them to buy things from a machine that was not checking how old they were. I am therefore clearly supportive of this legislation [and not the amendment].”

Slipping the mask, she continued: “The primary rationale behind the restriction on vape vending machines is to reduce vaping rates.”

Given the complete bunkum that Dr Johnson comes out with on any subject related to vaping, it is clear that she doesn’t care about the lives of adult smokers, she only cares about a complete prohibition of things she doesn’t like the idea of very much.

She claimed vending machines could also be used to sell nicotine pouches, “as a mechanism to bypass the responsibility of retail staff in ensuring that restrictions are met”. She completely ignored the sensible points made in the letters to Sarah Bool.

The Department of Health and Social Care’s own impact assessment states that the Bill will “reduce the number of people taking up vaping.” How does this serve their Smokefree 2030 ambition? It won’t, it will keep people smoking or make ex-smokers lapse by reducing access to products recognised as being 95% safer.

Johnson went on to try to claim that the vending machines in mental health setting weren’t helping improve health because no one could prove the purchasers weren’t being made by non-smokers.

“We need to consider that there are staff and other patients in mental health hospitals who may not wish to vape and should not be inadvertently and unnecessarily exposed to vaping products,” she idiotically commented.

And her opinion won the day. 

Andrew Gwynne, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care, commented: “We do not currently believe that there is a need to exempt mental health settings or other healthcare settings from these requirements.”

He suggested mental health units could open shops selling vapes! 

Photo Credit:

• Author generated image using Grok

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave 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 start-ups to develop content for their websites.