The goal could not be more ambitious: a country free of tobacco smoke (more or less) by the year 2030. To this end, the British Government has launched a program aimed at one million people, so that they stop smoking completely, or at least gradually, turning to electronic cigarettes in an initial phase of transition.
Pregnant women who smoke (9%) will even be offered a financial incentive of up to 500 euros, and it will be mandatory for tobacco packages to contain instructions on how to give up what for some is a vice and for to others a pleasure with an element of risk.
Although health authorities admit that vaping is not good for health either, and is banned in many settings, a fifth of British smokers will be encouraged to switch from conventional cigarettes to e-cigarettes over the next two years, to get off the hook, offering them a free “introductory kit for vaping”. The program will cost 60 million euros.
Vaping is considered a minor evil for adults, but the Government proposes to ban the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors. A study indicates that its use by boys and girls aged 11 to 17 will double (from 3.3% to 7%) by 2022, and that its growing popularity exposes teenagers to the potentially harmful effects harmful - about which there is little information - of chemical substances.
"The plan is to find a balance between combating youth vaping and at the same time making it an option for adults to quit smoking and have electronic cigarettes as an alternative. Up to two out of three smokers can die because of tobacco, the most important preventable cause of death in the country", said Neil O'Brien, Secretary of State for Health.
From the outset, the municipal authorities will be responsible for distributing the vaping equipment, disseminating the program and contacting smokers, as a first step for a wider campaign on a national scale.
The million people who are intended to quit smoking will receive information and various product options, of different intensity and flavor, so that they can find the one that best suits their tastes and needs.
This initiative is the continuation of a plan launched in 2021, with the aim of Britain (where there are fewer smokers than the world average) to be a “tobacco-free country” by 2030.
New Zealand has introduced a law to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco by one year each year, so that those born after January 1, 2009 and now fourteen years old will never smoke in their lives . The British Government plans to impose a similar measure, as well as prohibiting smoking on beaches and the patios and gardens of pubs. A parliamentary committee has proposed raising the minimum age to legally purchase cigarettes to 21.
In Australia you need a medical prescription to buy vaping products, while it is banned in countries such as Argentina, Iran, India, Thailand and Sri Lanka. In Turkey, only the sale, but not the consumption if one has somehow obtained one.
Britain, while acknowledging that they are potentially harmful, believes that e-cigarettes can be useful for a million people to get rid of tobacco addiction.
But the anti-obesity strategy, restricting the advertising of junk food and unhealthy products, has been frozen with the argument that now is not the time to restrict consumer choices, in the midst of inflation and the cost of living crisis. The new government does not seem very interested in the issue. Better to be overweight than smoke...
