2024 Session 3 Seminars

As the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is set to bring forward further regulations on both tobacco, vaping and other nicotine products this presentation will explore what the role will be for vaping as progress is made towards a smokefree country, how our legislative and policy approaches may need to evolve and what questions we should be considering as the UK moves closer to making smoking obsolete.

Challenges in Regulation: Craig will examine the changing vaping market in the UK over the past 12 months, the effects of the single-use plastics ban, the rise of novel vaping products under the current legislation, and the close collaboration between regulatory agencies. What are the pros and cons of these products? Are they legal? Are they safer? Are they the way forward?

Challenges of Enforcement:  The UK Government is planning to introduce further legislation to reduce the attractiveness and availability of vaping products to children and protect the environment. Critics say there is no point in considering new regulations when the current ones are not enforced. Kate will discuss the challenges faced by the authorities in enforcing the current regulations and how new legislation may help or hinder attempts to prevent children from using vapes while maintaining their availability and attractiveness for smoking cessation.

New Zealand is one year from the 2025 government deadline to reduce adult daily smoking to 5%. Until 2020, achieving this goal was looking unlikely, but in the last 4 years, adult smoking rates have dropped by 40%, correlating with a rapid increase in vaping and putting New Zealand on a trajectory to achieve 5% by 2025.

The unprecedented fall in smoking rates has gone largely uncelebrated. Concerns about the significant rise in youth vaping are dominating the public debate, with increased public perception that vaping is simply replacing smoking as the next public health disaster.

Tensions have been heightened by the repeal of the previous government’s smoking endgame laws that would have de-nicotinised cigarettes, reduced cigarette outlets by 90% and a smokefree generation policy.

This talk will update on progress towards Smokefree 2025 and how vaping has not just disrupted smoking, but also the way New Zealand thinks about tobacco control and addiction.

Is the noise about vaping distracting us from the real public health problem of smoking, and what this might mean for tobacco policy, harm reduction, and becoming a smokefree nation?

In this session, Prof Coral Gartner will provide a brief history and timelines of the major regulatory changes in Australia and examine the implementation and outcomes of the "Prescription model approach" where the defined objective was "to prevent adolescents and young adults from taking up nicotine vaping products while allowing current smokers to access these products for smoking cessation with appropriate medical advice".  Prof Gartner will discuss the challenges of the prescription model and reference patterns of vaping use, looking at age and motivation and how well the prescription model was used for smoking cessation.  Finally, Prof Gartner will discuss the most recent regulatory change that allows vape products to be sold by pharmacies without a prescription.  In conclusion, Prof Gartner will summarise the challenge of reaching a compromise that allows for wider access to vaping products while retaining health professional oversight while different groups argue for the continuation of the prescription model or introduction of a consumer model.

Flavours other than tobacco in vapes and nicotine pouch products are very common, and are generally regarded as pivotal to a users' experience. This presentation will show how the vast majority of products on the market in Europe and around the world are currently non-tobacco flavours, and consumers report that such flavours are important to their experience. However, flavours have been blamed by many as the driver of youth usage, and, other than in the case of menthol cigarettes, have historically been removed from the market for combustible tobacco products in many countries around the world.

The European Union's Tobacco Product Directive is already over 10 years old, in need of an update to reflect the changing consumer market for tobacco products, and in particular to encompass new products which were not prevalent a decade ago such as nicotine pouches. Will non-tobacco flavours be banned from the vape and nicotine pouch segments in the same way as for combustible cigarettes and heated tobacco, or will regulatory bodies recognise the role of flavours in the uptake of these products by smokers, and continue to allow them?  What are the consequences of restricting flavours to consumer behaviour and the development of illicit markets? And if the EU continues to allow flavours in these categories, what are EU Member States likely to do to further regulate the products themselves given the public concern over youth usage?

Worst fears & optimal outcomes