Germany's lawmakers have recently proposed a new ban on menthol flavours in safer nicotine products, but given that menthol is a key ingredient in over 80% of the flavours currently available on the market, could this proposed ban negatively impact the availability of safer nicotine products for people looking to quit smoking? Joining us today is Michael Landl, Director of the World Vapers' Alliance, to unpack Germany's proposals and the actions consumers are taking to make their voices heard in this debate.
Chapters:
0:00 - Coming up on today's programme 0:50 - Germany's flavour ban plan 2:57 - Will adult vapers be impacted by flavour restrictions? 5:11 - German consumers make their voices heard 7:06 - WVA voices opposition to flavour restrictionsTranscription:
00:04
Joanna Junak: Hello and welcome! I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.tv. Germany is considering a flavor ban that could risk pushing thousands of vapers to seek alternatives on the black market or return to smoking. In today's program Michael Landl, the director of the World Vapors Alliance, will tell us more about the situation in Germany and discuss the steps being taken by the organization to stop the proposed regulation. Hello Michael, thank you for joining us today. Can you tell us what is currently known about the proposed flavour ban in Germany and the general context around it?
01:04
Michael Landl: Yeah, it's a very strange situation in Germany because we will have elections there at the end of the month. So there is actually a new government coming in soon, most likely. But till the new government is formed and officially sworn in, the old government is kind of a caretaker government. But normally that means that they don't do any bigger proposals or law projects anymore. It's more or less just keeping everything running. But this time it seems to be a bit different. The three parties in the coalition were the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Green Party. But a few weeks ago they split up because they couldn't work together anymore. And that's why there are the new elections. But now it seems like the Green Party is still planning to implement a mental ban. So it's not a full-flavor ban, but a mental ban. And they can do it on their own without permission of the other two parties or with some democratic inclusion of the parliament or the public, no consultation. They can do it via directive. And what that would mean with mental ban is that 80% of flavors are banned because it's an ingredient, an important one for most of the flavors. So it's a de facto labor ban. And it's a bit worrying that the Green Party wants to do that without any participation of other political parties, but also not the general public. or experts, they just want to do it on their own. And obviously that would have quite drastic negative effects for vapers and smokers who want to quit via vaping, because if 80% of flavors are off the market, it will be way harder for them to quit.
02:58
Joanna Junak: And how could a flavor ban impact consumers in Germany?
03:04
Michael Landl: I mean, we know that most of the consumers are using some kind of flavors. So it's only 2% to 3% in all surveys who say that they exclusively use tobacco flavor. So if we reduce the flavors that drastically by 80%, a lot of people will not switch to vaping from smoking, or even current vapers might be forced back to smoking or the black market. Just this month, there came a study out where they compared former smokers, but now vapers, who use some flavors or who use only tobacco flavors. And the results are quite drastic. So it's six times more who use the flavors are able to reduce smoking and three times more are able to completely quit. So flavors are very important because if we only have one or two flavors, it's called vaping fatigue, which starts so that people need some kind of variation, differentiation to get a new taste in their mouth, basically. to be able to stay away. And if we reduce the flavors that drastically, a lot of people will be pushed back. And we know that from international examples that more people start to smoking again or that they go to the black market, which is obviously also not a good outcome for public health because on the black market, there are no safety checks, no quality controls, but also no age controls. And that is the main reason the Green Party says They want to ban flavors. So on all three fronts, there will be negative consequences and we need to do everything we can to convince the Green Party to avoid this de facto flavor ban. But unfortunately, it's up to them. They can do it with the directive. So vapers and consumers need to be very loud and tell the Green Party that that's a bad idea and it will have negative effects.
05:12
Joanna Junak: So what steps can consumers take to voice their opposition to the proposed ban?
05:18
Michael Landl: I mean, as I said, the most important thing is to raise our voices. We need to let the politicians at the Green Party know, the minister who is in charge now is Cem Özdemir, to let him know that it's a terrible idea to do that. There is also already a petition from the retail organization in Germany. It's in German. It's called wirliebengeschmack.de. So it's translated, we like flavors, basically. And there is a pretty good oversight of all the consequences, but also steps consumers can do. And I think that is very important. The only block for the Green Party is the second chamber in parliament that will be involved and needs to approve it. So what we as World Vapors Alliance already did is to contact all members of the, it's called Bundesrat, um and contacted them and explained them the negative consequences so i think consumers should look up their own representative for for their own states and contact them as well because they need to hear that and that's that's the only hope we have that they vote against it um but we will see it's most likely they will they will have to vote end of january so it's not too much time anymore or beginning of February, we don't know yet. So consumers need to raise need to raise their voices wherever they can. And as loud as possible, we try to do it via social media as well email campaign. And also media work, we already published a couple of press releases about it. So it would be also helpful if consumers share that or forward it to their representatives, that we can avoid the unfortunate situation of a de facto flavor ban in Germany.
07:06
Joanna Junak: Michael, you just mentioned that the World Vapors Alliance has launched a campaign to voice their concerns and prevent the ban.
07:15
Michael Landl: Yes, as I said, we contacted all the members of the second chamber already, the Bundesrat. So we will see if they reply to us, but I hope they at least are aware of the situation and the possible negative consequences of it. And we are running a social media campaign, especially targeted for the Green Party, so that they know there is opposition as well. and that they are informed about the potential negative effects for public health too. And obviously we try to help our members step by step how to contact the members of the second chamber as well. And the more people who do that, the better it is.
07:58
Joanna Junak: Thank you, Michael. We will keep an eye on the situation. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. You can also find transcriptions of each episode on the GFN TV website. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.