EVENTS
VAPITALY, VERONA
MAY 18-20.
VERONAFIERE, VERONA.
BY TOM SLACK
“I don’t smoke anything and I don’t
vape anything but smoking is bad
and, therefore, my battle is a matter of
health.
For me it was a point of honour to be here and to reaffirm
concrete closeness to this sector.”
The politician is also supporting the European ‘Vaping is not
tobacco’ campaign which seeks to further cut taxes
and bureaucracy in the industry.
He added: “This is a young, clean and healthy sector which
is now thriving again in Italy with new stores opening all the
time. I am proud to have re-launched what was a sector which
had crippled not for bad faith, but out of ignorance.”
He said he looked forward to returning to the expo next year
and fully expected to see more companies as the Italian vape
industry continued to grow and prosper.
Vapitaly president Mosè Giacomello said: “Having already
fought in favour of the e-cigarette in Italy, I am sure the
minister will be ready to commit himself at European level to
It is not every day you see a senior national politician at a vape
event but Vapitaly attracted Deputy Prime Minister and Interior
Minister Matteo Salvini to its Verona show.
The pro-vaping advocate is a firm believer in encouraging
smokers to quit and he played a key role in the recent
renaissance of the Italian vaping scene.
This once thriving industry took a nosedive when four years of
punitive taxes saw many hundreds of vape businesses close.
The customer base dried up because the Italian treasury
added around €4 to the cost of a 10ml e-liquid bottle in taxes
and vapers were unwilling to pay these prices.
These days things are a little different and late last year it was
announced that tax rates would be cut to more sensible levels
and, in fact, they came down by up to 90 percent.
As a result, we are now looking at a totally revitalised Italian
vape scene and events like Vapitaly prove just how vibrant the
industry has become.
The Interior Minister was one of the leading proponents in
reforming vape taxes and he received a hero’s welcome at the
Verona event.
Mr Salvini told reporters: “I took charge of the battle for vaping
and I’m glad I got a tax system that saved thousands of jobs,
hundreds of companies and thousands of shops.
170 | VM23