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Royal College of Physicians report calls for new tobacco harm reduction measures in the UK
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has long been an ally of vaping as a means of tobacco harm reduction. This week their latest report, titled “Smoking and health 2021: A coming of age for tobacco control?” has called for major changes to the UK’s tobacco harm reduction strategy.
The 152-page report covers a broad range of issues within tobacco control and warns that at current rates, the UK will not be “smoke-free” until 2050. It also suggests new policies, which could have a substantial impact on smoking rates in the UK.
Alongside traditional tobacco control policies, such as tax increases that would double the price of cigarettes over five years, the RCP is also recommending more radical ideas. These include enrolling all smokers on stop-smoking programmes, paying pregnant women to quit smoking, and major investments in media campaigns urging smokers to make the switch to vaping.
Among many positives for the vaping industry within this report, perhaps the most striking is the subject of health claims, which are currently restricted to products with a medicines license:
“Current regulations permit health claims to be made only for products with a medicines license. While necessary to protect the public from unsubstantiated health claims across a wide potential range of non-medicinal products, in a context in which the default for smokers is to continue to use a far more hazardous combustible tobacco product, this restriction is probably counter-productive to public health.
The continued absence of a commercially available licensed e-cigarette in the UK some 13 years after the products first appeared on the UK market is evidence in itself that the licensing process has not been a commercially attractive prospect for e-cigarette manufacturers. There remains a case, therefore, to make nicotine products an exception and allow health-based promotion of products for which a rational basis for reduced harm can be established.”
This report comes at an important time for vaping in the UK, as the government considers new tobacco regulations, now that the country is outside the jurisdiction of the EU’s TPD framework.
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