The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) – April 2024
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has published a new report that looks at the part e-cigarettes can play in preventing death, disability and inequalities from tobacco use.
The new RCP report, E-cigarettes and harm reduction: An evidence review, looks at several themes, including how e-cigarettes can be used to support more people to make quit attempts while discouraging young people and never-smokers from taking up e-cigarette use. It also examines trends in tobacco and vaping use, the effectiveness of e-cigarettes to treat tobacco addiction, and the differences in health effects of vaping in people who smoke, vape or do neither, the role of the tobacco industry in the rising use of e-cigarettes, and the ethical dilemmas presented by e-cigarettes.
With over 50 recommendations, the report concludes that e-cigarettes remain an important tool to alleviate the burden of tobacco use but that much more can and should be done to reduce their appeal, availability and affordability to people who do not smoke, including children and young people, and reduce environmental harms.
It makes several recommendations for regulations on vaping to protect young people and never smokers from vaping:
- Price – raising their price by introducing an excise tax and minimum unit pricing while banning multi-buy purchases but making sure they remain a less expensive option for adults using them to quit smoking.
- Promotion – restricting ‘point of sale’ in store promotional materials and product visibility, and restricting promotion on social media.
- Purchase – ensuring Trading Standards services are sufficiently resourced to effectively enforce e-cigarette sales legislation and reduce underage sales.
- Products – making products less appealing to young people by introducing standardised packaging and flavour descriptors. Require manufacturers to limit the production of toxic substances from vapes, require the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to independently verify product contents, provide advice to consumers on which are the safest products if using them to stop smoking and require manufacturers cover the costs of recycling.
Read the report – E-cigarettes and harm reduction – full report
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