Looks like we're going round in circles again.. as it seems totally obvious that vapes have impacted smoking rates across the board.. but by how much though, is probably hard to work out/debatable.
I do have some stuff on this but not to hand... I will dig it out later though.
Smoking rates/cigarette sales have been dropping a lot in the last 20 years (I'll find the graph later)
I think it would have continued to fall regardless of whether vaping was around or not. There's a lot of reasons for that but obviously cost, it's image (which isn't great these days), people's general move towards a more healthy lifestyle (along with 'healthy choice' foods, plant based diets etc) the smoking ban in pubs and a number of other social things... and just the public knowledge on the harm smoking does. It's a combination of adult smokers dying, far less people taking up smoking and many mid to long term smokers quitting (with vaping and other NRTs)
The amount of never-smokers vaping was (until recently I presume) extremely low. Surveys suggested that around 30% of young people had tried a vape, but very few were vaping frequently. I forget the number but it may have been around 5% and 'frequently' was described as 'more than once a month' ... the number that were vaping daily was less than 1% I believe. I'll find the actual survey later but the actual % doesn't really matter.
I suspect that the number of young never-smokers who are vaping 'frequently' and 'daily' has grown significantly since disposables became 'popular' ... that's the correlation that government will be concerned about and anti-vape groups will be jumping on.
If these young people never smoked there was no nicotine dependency for them to need to start vaping, so luring them in with pocket money disposables will be seen by many as exploitative tactics to create a new generation of addicts they can continue to make money from in years to come. That's not me making a judgement on that, it's just how it will be seen. ... and that was never going to fly.
It's only the fact that vaping works to help people stop smoking and the support from cancer groups and such that means we can even vape in this country at all. If the surveys show that disposables are increasing the number of never-smoked vapers more than effecting the rates of 'switchers', then they won't support their use. I don't think it's any more complicated than that. I don't have that recent information, but I would guess that is the case and why this has all come up now.
add to that the problem with the plastics and batteries, the re-cycling issues, littering and the sheer amount of them and it probably seems like the only thing to do. ... or the simplest way to do it probably. ... I dunno, I understand why they are doing it and I wouldn't have a better answer myself, so I guess that's why I wouldn't mind if they did it.
It is a shame though, as obviously if someone goes to a 'stop smoking' clinic (if they can even find one these days, as the Gov has stopped funding most) then a few disposables is the perfect thing to give them to try, but they aren't a good long term solution anyway so I don't think they will be a great loss.
Sorry, I'm just banging on now.. and most of this has nothing to do with your quote! ....... hey, it's good to chat though!
