IImagine if we had found a way to get millions of people to switch from alcohol, which is deadly in this country 10,000 people per yearto a different kind of drug: still addictive, still not without risk, but quite harmless compared to the drink. Coffee, so to speak.
A public health miracle is being welcomed. Delivery units are empty. Heart surgeons are spending more time on the golf course and expensive government prevention programs are being halted. Millions flow into the NHS coffers.
But now imagine a hiccup. Amid all this, a coffee craze has emerged in schools: every chance they get, kids sneak off to enjoy lattes in a range of disgustingly sweet flavors. Parents worry: caffeine is bad for the developing brain. And then some evidence emerges that a number of chemicals produced during the roasting process may be carcinogenic – but usually in much higher doses than in the average coffee cup. The results are inconclusive.
From these seeds a panic arises and grows. What to do? You make it illegal to sell coffee to people under the age of 18, but children are still exposed to it. So what now? Increase coffee taxes? Illegal advertising? Put coffee in regular packaging? Ban coffee on the train and on the street? Ban all but the bitterest brands?
Is it really worth risking this public health miracle you’ve been waiting so long for?
This is a column about vaping, over which Britain is in a self-sabotaging moral panic. The latest case of panic occurred last week Tobacco and Vaping Billwhich proposed a ban on vape advertising and sponsorship, as well as powers to restrict flavours, packaging and display. We’ve heard that vaping may be banned in smoke-free areas.
There was even more panic in the budget for the past monthin the form of an additional tax on the evaporation of liquid. And that followed a panicked announcement that there will be disposable vapes banned from next summer.
Let’s start with how strange it is to impose a ban on the most popular and effective smoking cessation tool we currently have. We may assume that the number of smokers is decreasing, but it is still a huge health problem 11% of adults in Britain smokeand every year it kills approximately 76,000 of us. It costs the NHS £2.5 billion per year – and the country £13 billion in lost productivity. It is still the leading cause of preventable death and disease in England.
People know the dangers, but it is very difficult to quit and for many, vaping is the solution. The success rate in quitting vaping is between 60% and 74%. Health organization Action on Smoking and Health notes in its latest research that of all people who have quit smoking in the past five years, just over half indicate used a vapor for this. This amounts to 2.7 million people.
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In short, vapes have achieved what decades of government initiatives struggled to achieve. They make us give up cigarettes.
But now this miracle is in danger. Concerns about e-cigarettes have infected government departments and the population at large, and smokers view them with suspicion. In fact, more than half of smokers in England now wrongly believe this vaping is more or just as harmful as smoking. It’s not.
So how safe are vapes really?? The answer so far seems to be ‘reasonable’. They contain nitrosaminesa carcinogenic family of chemicals, but only at “insignificant” levels. Nickel and cadmium, from vapor heating elements, are also bad for you, but only in much higher amounts than those found in vapors. Also, vaping does not cause “popcorn lung,” as some believe – the name for a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans, caused by a chemical banned in vaping liquids.
The biggest danger in vapor liquid seems to come from formaldehyde and acetaldehydeboth of which are known to increase the risk of cancer. But experts agree that this threat is small compared to the damage caused by cigarettes. Cigarette smoke contains about 70 carcinogens, as well as tar and toxins such as carbon monoxide and arsenic. A recent modeling study has shown that the cancer risk due to e-cigarette emissions is high less than 1% compared to tobacco smoke.
So why do people think vaping is as dangerous as cigarettes? It is a strange feature of human psychology that we tend to overestimate unknown risks and underestimate known ones. We know cigarettes kill us. We’re not sure if vaping can be bad for us in one or two small ways. Somehow the messages mix.
There are good reasons to restrict underage vaping. Young brains exposed to nicotine are more likely to become addicted to other things later. But there are also reasons not to go overboard. The fearful talk of an ‘epidemic’ in schools is exaggerated: the latest data tells us this is only approximately the case 9% of 11 to 15 year olds vape regularly the same number in 2023 as in 2021.
It would be better if children didn’t vape, but taxing vapes and restricting flavors is not the solution: it risks harming adult smokers who might otherwise be tempted to switch. It is already illegal to sell vapes to under-18s; the rest of the work could be done by schools and parents, just as we deal with other harmful behavior by minors. Let’s keep in mind that rebellious children have indulged in much more dangerous fads. If we really want to help children’s health, we can do something about their rising alcohol consumption. now at record levels in England.
But let’s end with a cautionary tale from Australia, which made vaping prescription-only in 2021. What followed? Low consumption of prescription vapes, and a increase in the number of smokers. Our victory over the cancer sticks is more fragile than we might think. Let’s not jeopardize it.