2023 Session 3 Seminars

The UK's Prime Minister has announced the most ambitious and comprehensive tobacco control Plan in 20 years. Vaping policy is at the heart of the plan fully embracing the goals of maximising the opportunity for smokers to quit while guarding against youth uptake. In this presentation Martin Dockrell will set out how the Government is honouring the pledge to offer 1 million smokers in England a vape as part of a smoking quit attempt, the first national Swap to Stop scheme anywhere in the world. He will outline some of the innovative schemes already underway and set out the opportunities for the year to come

Since 2005 the North East in England has had a comprehensive tobacco control programme in place and overall smoking rates have more than halved - the biggest drop of any region. The session will look at core components for this and what the vision for the future is. Ailsa will focus on youth vaping issues set within a broader context around tobacco and other related harms and measures to strike the best-balanced approach.

Hazel Cheesman from ASH will reflect on how the rest of the country is approaching the question of vaping, how other regions are following the lead from the North East and they progress being made to develop coherent approaches to maximising the opportunities from vaping for adult smokers while minimising the risks to teenagers.

Rachel McIlvenna will present an overview of the North East North Cumbria approach to vaping within the NHS context, the key enablers and how a recent pilot of smoking cessation with NHS staff led to 75% uptake of vapes in the first year.

Dr Ruth Sharrock will present her insight as a respiratory clinician in the North East North Cumbria and provide case study examples of patients and staff with serious clinical conditions where vaping presents the most accessible and tangible tool for use to stop smoking. She will also highlight how navigating personal and professional opinions is crucial and the i role that the evidence base plays.

In this session Dr Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh will discuss smoking prevalence in Malaysia and the West Pacific Region (WPRO-China as the biggest supplier of tobacco to the Asian region) and consider the implementation of a Generation End Game (GEG) in an upper middle income country which has grappled with tobacco control for many years. Despite signing the FCTC in 2005, Malaysia has not been able to reach its target and is compounded by the ill-effects of black market tobacco. Dr Sharifa will present & discuss data on the prevalence of tobacco smokers, prevalence of e-cigarette use, and heated tobacco products, burden of disease and current policies to fight the detrimental effects of smoking.  This talk will discuss the potential impacts of the GEG Tobacco Bill (coming soon in Nov 2023).  Finally this session will explore the relationship between tobacco control and harm reduction policies and consider the barriers for both, including concerns about health hazards of nicotine containing products and how harm reduction policies in one country may affect the equilibrium in another country.

Why did vapes create such a breakthrough in the English Stop Smoking Services? What was it about this people-driven innovation that brought us to the point where vapes will be given by the government to a million people who smoke? Is it a treatment, or something else entirely? Louise Ross, who launched the first vape-friendly stop-smoking service, looks at how switching to vaping has become not only possible but is supported by and enabled through national policy. She will look at the obstacles that still need to be overcome and the benefits that could be gained.

• Should we be using public money to support people who use nicotine products across the spectrum to quit?
• What are the pros and cons of the “prescription only model” for e-cigarettes, as proposed and enacted in other counties?
• Why is harm reduction a recognised tool for many societal issues, but so controversial in tobacco control?
• Have vaping and THR debates facilitated or distracted from the focus on ending the smoking epidemic?
• Has the UK approach targeted the right people with the right message?