UK Disposable Vape Ban Confirmed

It’s here. The UK government has announced a disposable vape ban and will be implementing plain packaging, flavour restrictions, and limitations on displays. This is a sad day for a country that was leading the world in tobacco harm reduction.

The government has introduced this ban in response to the rising number of children vaping—children who are almost entirely using disposable vapes.

The vape ban makes sense in theory: kids are using disposables, so if you ban what they’re vaping, they won’t get their hands on them. Right?

How awfully short-sighted of the UK government.

Why the Disposable Vape Ban Won’t Work

The problem with the disposable vape ban is clear and has been demonstrated in other countries (for example, with the Australian Vape Ban). 

Put plainly, children in the UK aren’t getting their vapes from specialist online retailers, who use third-party age verification software. They’re not getting their vapes from brick-and-mortar high street vape shops—no, those stores check ID. 

Children are overwhelmingly getting their vapes from shady off-licences and corner shops who care more about making a sale than the law. These are the same places where you’ll often find illegally imported disposable vapes: vapes destined for other countries like the US boasting 6000 puffs with a 50mg (5%) nicotine strength. This is what’s falling into the hands of our youth. 

Those highlighter vapes, the ones that look like cartoon characters or the ones with Rick & Morty printed on the side—those aren’t TPD approved. They’re not legal for sale in the UK.

Now, a ban will accomplish only two things: it’ll take disposable vapes away from responsible retailers and the adult smokers who need them, and it’ll fuel the existing black market for illegally imported disposable vapes. Shady dealers are flouting the law already—does the government think a new ban will make any difference?

And who will police them—Trading Standards, you say? The agency already so overstretched that they cannot stamp out the existing black market or enforce the current restrictions on underage sales?

Even Trading Standards says that clamping down on existing regulation would be more effective than a new outright vape ban. 

We wholeheartedly support the government’s mission to curb youth vaping. However, this “vape ban plan” is destined for failure. Regulated, legal disposables will become inaccessible to those who need them most—adult smokers—while their cheap, illicit counterparts will flood every off-licence and corner shop within easy reach of the under-18s that the government has sworn to protect.

We know that disposable vapes are not good for the planet and are falling into the hands of young people. We, along with the entire UK vape industry, have proposed alternate measures that would curb youth access to vaping products while encouraging the UK’s flourishing industry. 

But this is what we get instead: prohibition.

Say Goodbye to Your Favourite E-Liquid Flavours 

If you think you’re safe because you don’t use disposables, think again. The UK government has its eyes set on your flavours, too.

This is, of course, subject to an upcoming consultation.

The government will be banning any and all flavours they deem to have “youth appeal” or are “targeted at minors.” Sweets, drinks, desserts… That Parma Violet E-Liquid flavour you love is toast—which is funny, considering that I’ve never met a teenager who liked Parma Violets as much as my 70 year-old mum-in-law.

Say goodbye to candy flavours, energy drink flavours—bubble gum, cola, cotton candy, cereal flavours. These are apparently all nefariously designed to target the UK’s teens and were never intended to appeal to adult smokers. Of course—because kids are such reliable consumers.

If we’re lucky, we’ll be left with tobacco, mint/menthol, and fruit flavours—and who’s to say what constitutes a “fruit” flavour? Does Riot’s Watermelon Ice nic salt—a very candied, artificial-tasting, but well-loved flavour—count as fruit or candy? 

Who will decide?

And what will vapers do when their preferred flavour is taken away?

In the Vape Green UK Vapers Survey 2023, we asked our customers: “What would you do if the UK government banned or significantly restricted your access to vaping?”

38.8% said they would go back to smoking cigarettes. 34.9% said they’d find illicit ways to buy vape products. Only 26.4% said they’d quit vaping altogether.

The Vape Tax

The UK government has so far been eerily silent about one other facet that was covered during the open consultation period: an proposed increased tax on vaping products.

Now, this is speculation, but the promised £30m to help Trading Standards police the illicit vape market has to come from somewhere. A tax on vaping products would deliver just that, bringing the cost of vapes in line with cigarettes and obliterating vaping’s greatest allure in one fell swoop.

This is my greatest fear: a rise in the cost of vaping. We see so many smokers who wouldn’t have finally taken the plunge if vaping weren’t so much cheaper than smoking. 

In fact, in our survey last year, we polled vapers on their reasonings for switching to vaping. Vapers could select any and all answers that applied to them. The most popular response was “to quit smoking for my health” with 82.2%, while “to save money” was second, chosen by 46.5% of respondents.

If you take away the savings and the flavours, what incentives are left for smokers to make the switch to vaping?

We sorely hope that the government will forgo implementing a tax on vapes. 

What Can Vapers Do?

All that’s left for UK vapers to do now is make a lot of noise. Write to your MP. Start a petition.

Back vaping publicly. Make your opinions known. Raise hell.

I know I will be. I wrote to my MP this morning outlining all of the flaws in this plan. 

For now, we’ll have to wait to see what Rishi Sunak comes out with next.