We are delighted that ASH and YouGov have confirmed that the British people are voting with their feet and switching from smoking to significantly less harmful vaping products. Public Health England is clear that vaping is at least 95% less harmful than smoking. If we can now convince the UK’s nine million remaining smokers to switch to vaping, this will produce huge benefits for our nation’s health and the NHS’ finances.
Unfortunately, the public are still receiving a barrage of mixed messages about vaping. This, coupled with excessive tobacco-style regulation coming from the EU, puts at risk the seismic public health prize that vaping represents.
It is time for the Government to seize the public health opportunity on offer, and the chance presented by Brexit, to finally address one of our society’s most intransigent public health problems – smoking related diseases.