Restrictions Could Reduce Switching

Dr Harry Tattan-Birch said: “For countries interested in discouraging vaping among young people, standardizing the colour of vaping devices could be considered alongside standardized packaging as a potential policy option”.

The UK government is considering standardising the colour and branding of vaping devices as part of the powers they are granting themselves as part of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. The idea is that this will reduce young people’s interest in trying them. 

The University College London team included Tattan-Birch, Katherine East, Sharon Cox, Sarah Jackson, Jamie Brown, Erikas Simonavicius, Jessica Reid, David Hammond, and Eve Taylor. They looked at the impact of standardising the colour and branding of disposable vaping devices on young people’s interest in trying them.

Using data from national surveys of 16–29-year-olds in Canada, England and the United States in 2023 (N=15,259), they randomised the respondents and showed them images of either four branded disposable vapes (7638 subjects) or four standardised white disposable vapes (7621 subjects) and asked them which ones from the images they would be interested in trying.

They say that previous research shows that “tobacco and vape packaging that is standardised is less appealing to young people, but the effect of standardising the colour and branding of the vape device itself is unknown.”

Respondents were asked “Which of the following vapes would you be interested in trying?” with options to select any of the four vapes displayed within each condition (including multiple) with response options “Interest in trying”, “I have no interest in trying any of these products”, “Don’t know” or “Refused”.

Also, “participants were shown one of the products within their condition at random and were asked ‘How harmful do you think it is to vape this product?’ with response options ‘Not at all harmful’, ‘Harmful, but less harmful than smoking cigarettes’, ‘As harmful as smoking cigarettes’, ‘More harmful than smoking cigarettes’, ‘Don’t know’ or ‘Refused’.”

The team concluded: “Standardising the colour and branding of vaping devices reduces interest in trying them among 16–29-year-olds across all vaping and smoking subgroups, but with the effects strongest among those who smoke and/or vape. Effects on harm perceptions of vaping were minimal. 

“For countries interested in discouraging vaping among young people, standardising the colour of vaping devices could be considered alongside standardised packaging as a potential policy option. 

“However, there may be unintended consequences in terms of discouraging those who smoke from switching to vaping, which should be further investigated and possibly balanced with other targeted policies to encourage smoking cessation.”

References:

• Impact of standardising the colour and branding of vape devices on product appeal among young people: a randomised experiment in England, Canada and the United States - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2821086

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.