The Scottish Grocers’ Federation (SGF) has presented Scottish Government with a blueprint to reduce vaping among children, while also ensuring that adult smokers who wish to quit smoking, can easily access vapes.
The convenience trade body wrote to Scottish Government Public Health Minister Jenni Minto with a list of suggested changes for producers, retailers, enforcement agencies and government, which are outlined in a new Healthier Choices, Healthier Lives document.
Within the document, the SGF has pledged to work with retailers to ensure that vaping products remain in public view, but are placed alongside tobacco products to show them as an alternative, not an addition. The trade body has also called for tougher regulation on naming and packaging to deter child vaping, but has warned against flavour restrictions.
The blueprint asks producers to encourage alternative vaping products over disposables, but urges the Scottish Government to rule out an outright ban on disposable vapes so as not to fuel illicit trade.
The document is being shared with all MSPs, highlighting the steps being taken to ensure responsible retailing balances with the need to support the use of vapes as an alternative to tobacco, helping to make Scotland smoke-free and reducing pressures on the NHS.
SGF chief executive Dr Pete Cheema OBE said: “Scotland has been a trailblazer on smoking harm reduction. But to take the next step towards a smoke-free generation, we need a more nuanced debate about vaping. There is a poor and unproductive relationship between some manufacturers of vaping products, retailers, regulators and policy-makers, and it is creating unintended consequences.
“The Healthier Choices, Healthier Communities campaign is about balance. We want to help create public policy which simultaneously encourages vaping amongst adults who wish to quit smoking and discourages it amongst non-smokers, particularly given the evidence of young people vaping.
“We will strike that balance by advocating for a change in the naming and packaging of vapes, particularly the single-use variety, while also strongly resisting restrictions on the use of flavour - the critical characteristic of vaping products which stop smokers from lapsing back to cigarettes.”
While SGF members sell both cigarettes and e-cigarettes, they are committed to playing their part in improving health outcomes by helping people who wish to stop smoking transition over to vapour products, while also advocating responsible use of them.
In the future, Healthier Choices, Healthier Communities will be extended to similar work in the areas of harm reduction from alcohol, and high fat, sugar and salt foods.
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