Greece Flavour Ban Threat
Flavour bans threaten public health progress, so say consumer advocates, as Greece plans to ban all vape flavours except tobacco and menthol
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by Dave Cross
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Consumer organisations and vaping advocates from Greece and across Europe, including the Greek Vapers’ Alliance and the World Vapers’ Alliance, are sounding the alarm over the Ministry of Health’s proposed ban on all vape flavours except tobacco and menthol. They warn that this measure risks reversing Greece’s hard-won progress in reducing smoking rates.
Greek Minister for Health Adonis Georgiadis has announced that he will ban flavours in electronic cigarettes, pods and eliquids. The plan forms part of a new Bill published by the Ministry of Health. Typically, the justification is ‘because children’ and ignores the fact that vaping works as a smoking cessation tool for adults because of flavours.
The Bill states that all popular flavours will be banned from sale and current stocks will have to be withdrawn from store shelves.
Adonis Georgiadis said: “These flavours make e-cigarettes attractive to children and adolescents, and we must protect them.”
According to the World Vapers’ Alliance, since 2019, when Greece officially adopted harm reduction as a core pillar of its tobacco control policy, the country has reversed the previously growing trend of smoking - a stark contrast to the stagnation seen across much of the EU.
Michael Landl, Director of the World Vapers’ Alliance, stated: “A flavour ban would be a huge step backwards for public health and harm reduction. By supporting a flavour ban, policymakers would push millions of adults back to smoking or into the black market, endangering lives and ignoring scientific evidence. Scientific research consistently shows that flavours play a crucial role in helping smokers quit. The endorsement of the flavour ban ignores those findings and the clear will of the people. This will cause more harm than good.”
Nikolas Christofidis, spokesperson for the Greek Vapers’ Alliance, added: “Banning flavours in e-cigarettes is a superficial and dangerous decision. It does not target the real cause of use by minors, but it does punish hundreds of thousands of adult ex-smokers who have managed to quit smoking thanks to flavours. Instead of boosting harm reduction, they push them back to cigarettes or the illicit market. We call on the Ministry of Health to immediately reconsider this approach and to listen to the voice of consumers.”
The advocates have urged the Ministry to engage with consumers, experts, and the scientific community to develop regulations that protect youth without sacrificing the health and freedom of adult ex-smokers.
“Evidence-based policies, not prohibition, are the path forward for public health,” says the World Vapers’ Alliance.
Photo Credit:
Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash
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 start-ups to develop content for their websites.
