alcohol and other things. Plus, there’s overlap with cannabis vaping
and most teen vapers previously smoked.”
He also noted that JUUL’s market share has skyrocketed since the
FDA began pushing the ‘epidemic’ narrative, whereas in the UK,
vaping isn’t seen by teens as harmful or rebellious, which means
they are less attracted do it.
Dan made some great points about the panic over flavours and said
that rather than demonising products, we should be going after the
people and businesses who put them into the hand of kids.
He said:
“Youth access has nothing to do with flavours. There are not millions
of kids in America who are unable to resist the taste of anything
mango flavoured.
“Adult vapers go for sweet flavours because tobacco just doesn’t
taste very nice. There are no other tobacco-flavoured products on
the market because tobacco tastes terrible.”
As our government is supportive of vaping for smoking-cessation,
it’s easy for us in the UK to be complacent. However, Martin
believes that this could change if the US situation gets worse or the
government starts thinking that the industry is trying to attract kids
with childish packaging.
Martin said:
“No politician wants to defend an industry that looks like it’s selling
to children. We need to be advocates for our industry.”
While Dan doesn’t believe that kids are enticed by packaging, he
acknowledged that it looks bad for the industry and we should not
be ‘adding fuel to the fi re.’
John believes that vape shops can do more to protect the
industry’s reputation. This includes improving online verification
systems and adopting a ‘challenge 25’ policy in-store.
However, he noted that Trading Standards has seen the same
issues with other age-restricted products like alcohol and knives,
suggesting that this is not an issue that’s exclusive to vaping. It’s
about enforcement of existing laws.
Advocacy was a major theme at the show and not just with our
Together We Are Vape campaign.
Martin wrapped up the panel by calling on everyone to stand up and
defend vaping.
“The only thing that stopped the UK government banning vaping in
2010 was thousands of vapers writing to the consultation. They
had to listen.
“The most powerful people in the debate are consumers so everyone
needs to get that message out.”
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