Millions of smokers have managed to quit smoking thanks to vaping and similar less harmful alternatives to smoking. At the same time, traditional anti-smoking policies, like tobacco taxes, advertising and marketing bans, and high taxation, to name a few, have had only limited effectiveness thus far. Although commendable, these policy measures clearly haven’t brought about the desired outcomes, given how in the EU, there still are more than 80 million current smokers, and nearly 700,000 deaths due to smoking-induced illnesses every year.

As conventional policies have failed to drive down this staggering number, new innovations, such as vaping, have entered the market and have the potential to save millions of lives. With consumer-friendly vaping regulations, 19 million smokers could switch to vaping in Europe – a 95% less harmful alternative.

New scientific evidence is being ignored by the EU

Just last week, the new evidence review from England’s Office of Health Improvement and Disparities (the successor to Public Health England) concluded that “vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking” and that exposure to carcinogens, respiratory toxicants, and CVD-related toxicants is “significantly lower” compared to smoking.

Unfortunately, the EU and the EU Commission in particular are still not encouraging vaping as a harm reduction method, unlike the UK. Several policy suggestions floating around Brussels would have detrimental effects for public health and are ignoring scientific evidence and the experience of consumers.

Vaping flavours matter to reduce smoking rates

Studies have proven that two-thirds of vapers use non-tobacco flavours to quit smoking and are 230% more likely to quit this way. Therefore, the important role of flavours for smoking cessation cannot be neglected.

Only in the EU, we saw multiple attempts to ban or regulate vaping flavours. Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Hungary, and some others have already forbidden flavoured liquids. And even though there was a glimpse of hope with the Swedish government finally rejecting the flavour ban, last year’s “Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan”, which will serve as the guideline for the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) update, left the door open for flavour bans.

Restricting flavoured liquids makes it more challenging for smokers to quit and risks hard-fought progress made by consumers that have moved away from more dangerous cigarettes. According to the University of Waterloo, flavour bans push 5 out of 10 vapers back to smoking or the black market.

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