Following neatly on from last week’s look at alcohol policy and independence, it’s time to look at one old vice (smoking) alongside a much newer one (vaping).
Some of the more obvious and pressing issues – regulation of the vaping industry, introducing a tax/duty on vapes and tighter licensing of tobacco and vapes – are set to be addressed in the UK Parliament’s Tobacco & Vapes Bill (mentioned earlier).
Due to the common law system, laws passed before independence by the UK Parliament would continue to apply in an independent Wales unless we decide to repeal them.
The other issues worth considering include:
The potential loss of income from tobacco duty – If you only count the direct costs of treating smoking-related illnesses than tobacco duty probably raises enough for the NHS to pay for it in principle (though it wouldn’t cover the entire social costs, such as absenteeism, passive smoking and welfare).
Much like switching to electric vehicles would result in a loss of fuel duty, there would be a loss of tax revenue from cutting smoking rates. That’s not a bad thing in itself, but it’s a good idea to keep the future duty on vaping products low enough to encourage smokers to switch for their own benefit. This would lead to a drop in tax income, however.
Vaping in public – Based on the noises they’ve made in the past, if the Welsh Government believe they could introduce a ban on vaping in public indoor places they would do so.
The issue is whether there’s enough public health evidence to support restrictions because “passive vaping” exists in some way. We don’t know for sure, so an indoor vaping ban could be considered a sensible precaution.
You could also argue it would be an overreaction based on gut instinct rather than hard evidence, taking away one of the reasons why a smoker might switch from tobacco to vapes in the first place.
Black market tobacco and vapes – As we’ve found out from narcotics, once you make something illegal or more difficult to get, criminals step in to supply the demand. There’ve been several reported prosecutions for selling counterfeit tobacco and vapes in Wales over the last few years and there are estimates that up to 10% of all tobacco sold in Wales is illegal. It’s a tax dodge, but if you’re not sure what’s in the cigarettes they could be even more dangerous too.
