England went backwards in tobacco control

"Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: …“Nobody would really seriously say the UK is right and the WHO [World Health Organization] and the rest of the world is wrong… The issue is you’ve got people who are coming from a particular perspective and there is no discussion outside that group view. There is also an exclusiveness that you get in the UK science policy area, which does not look for experience elsewhere.”… Jonathan Grigg, professor of paediatric respiratory and environmental medicine at Queen Mary University of London: …“This is the way the tobacco industry can present themselves as being interested in health. The day they stop selling cigarettes, you can take that seriously, but we’re not there yet.” [Ben Spencer, Tom Calver. Vape nation: how did Britain end up so hooked on e‑cigarettes?, Sunday Times]. The Lancet 2024: Brexit has been a failure from health perspective. During COVID-19 pandemic young smokers increased in England and 2016-23 nicotine addiction.

2018-2021 current vaping in English children aged 11-15 years increased from 6% to 9% and girls aged 15 doubled their vaping rate from 10 to 21%: www.thetimes.co.uk, associated with a decrease of happiness www.independent.co.uk. This development started with bought „Public Health England“ and the silencing of British scientists independent from industry during Brexit and Boris Johnson (2019-22). Liz Truss and her health minister Thérèse Coffey would have continued this disastrous policy, ruining the earlier good work in tobacco prevention and even the reputation of independent research and publications in England. 2021 funding of tobacco prevention had decreased to zero points in TCS. The last hope for the conservatives is Sunak, who opposed Johnson. But it might be difficult for an earlier broker to reverse the commercialization of research, stop bribery of think tanks like IEA funded by the tobacco (and oil) industry and restore independent science. Tory infiltration to BBC board (Gibb appointed by Johnson) and BBC director Sharp undermined independent news. Public health in U.K. is going downhill and business with e-cigarettes from China in British adolescents and students is on the increase, including "Elf Bars" with overdose nicotine and illegal additives. Instead of paying £ 400,- to all pregnant women who proved (by a negative cotinine test) that they did not use any nicotine, the government in London announced to pay this sum only to smokers in pregnancy and not only for nicotine abstinence, but also for switching to e-cigarettes. England wants to offer free e-cigs starter kits to a million of smokers (including adolescents) and calls this a health program for cessation, but in fact promotes vaping. Cochrane UK reports supported the government. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland did not follow this line. Scotland rejected similar plans already in 2017, demanded stricter regulations against the increase of youth vaping wanting to follow the example of Australia and bans single-use vapes in April 2025. But the Tories accepted a donation from e-cigarette business and BBC hesitated to warn until 2023 when reports of serious lung damage in children had blamed the marketing of the vaping industry. Since mid 2021 the decline of nicotine consumption in adults reversed and is now going up again, especially at age 18-24 yrs including persons who would never had started smoking without e-cigarettes. Many of them increase their health risk even more than traditional smokers if they become users of both products.

BMJ published our early warning in 2007, but not our scientific article on dangers of all nicotine products on a free market. Conflicting results published thereafter by English authors were rarely questioned until 2023 when conflicts could not be hidden anymore and PMI welcomed the U.K.’s decision and demanded even more tax money for distribution of free e-cigarettes, HTPs and nicotine pouches. Hopefully the Upper Court of England and Wales (which had succeeded already in introducing plain packaging) will block the irresponsible plans of Neil O'Brien and use better examples (like plans of Ryan Park for Australia). O'Brian's approach does not reflect the current Govt policy stances in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland (where only prescription options are recommended). But the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) seems to be guided by the wish of politicians instead of providing evidence based research to them. Politicians misguided by TI-paid lobby associations pretending to defend rights of consumers (26 min. Video).

Diplomats from U.K., Japan and Switzerland lobby for tobacco companies. They should have been excluded from COP-10 in Panama 2024, because they defend own commercial interests and not the interests of the people in their countries. (Even Rishi Sunak said that he is worried that his daughters could be seduced by a heavily flavored product often packaged in bright colours, nevertheless he first relied on youth protection by a tobacco company which had to pay $462 million to resolve lawsuits on their marketing of addictive vaping products to children in the US). UK sells 'starter kits Juul2' with 18mg/ml nicotine and steeling data from users on their individual puffing behavior, etc. in order to manipulate them. UK government promised harm reduction (possibly for some selected smokers), but produced harm for its population and helped nicotine producers to manipulate public opinion for years. Tobacco industry interference increased until 2023 to 48 points and UK slipped from 3rd to 21st place against the last report, which is the most rapid deterioration in performance recorded in Europe. In October 2023 Sunak promised to close loopholes in the tobacco law which allow children to get free samples and buy 'non-nicotine' vapes. A tax on e-cigarettes was not planned before Oct. 2026. Youth vaping has tripled in the last three years, and more children now vape than smoke in UK. Therefore the government finally considered to stop underage sales and tackle the import of illicit tobacco and vaping products at the border, to restrict the flavors, descriptions and packaging of vapes targeted at children, to restrict point of sale displays in retail outlets keeping vapes out of sight from children and away from products that appeal to them, such as sweets, and to ban disposable vapes (like before in France, etc.). But this plan (316 in favour, 67 against) was not put into practice, but was postponed to the next government after preliminary elections on July 4th, 2024, which were lost by the Torries. Sunak had dropped his plan before the elections, after intervention by tobacco companies and some parliamentarians like 59 conservatives, including business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch, voted against him. Also the former prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson still support tobacco industry and fight WHO. For adults 'harm reduction' by e-cigarettes or HTPs is is still  recommended, so that UK adolescents will continue to grow up in homes and environments with users of cigarettes, thereby facing an up to fourfold risk to become smokers themselves later. The solution proposed for UK had already been planned for New Zealand, which banned 2003 the sale of tobacco products to all generations born in 2009 or later, but this law was cancelled before it could enter into force, because Big Tobacco succeeded to support right wing politicians, who won elections in 2023. Similar legislation in UK could have decided long-term success (Arte-video, 11 min) or failure of tobacco control, however, it seems nearly impossible to control youth access to nicotine, if e-cigarettes, new heated nicotine products and nicotine pouches are sold everywhere and not only in licensed stores. It is also impossible to heavily promote vapes among adults and say to youngsters not to use them. Only a total advertising ban of nicotine products in all media (also display, point of sales, social media) works for youngsters.