Belgium has become the first country in Europe to ban disposable vapes, but will this actually have an impact on youth vaping rates, or will it just reduce access to safer nicotine products for millions of adults who smoke in Belgium? Joining us today is Alberto Gómez Hernández, Policy Manager at the World Vapers' Alliance, to dissect Belgium's vaping crackdown and the impact this could have on adult vapers.
Chapters:
0:00 - Coming up on today's programme 1:16 - Belgium bans disposables! 2:43 - Misinformation drives ban 4:0 - Will this ban impact adult vapers? 4:50 - Consumers condemn ban 5:39 - Belgium's smokefree ambition 7:01 - Europe embraces disposable bansTranscription:
00:05
Joanna Junak: Hello and welcome! I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.TV. As of January 1 of this year, Belgium has become the first European country to ban the sale of disposable vapes, stating that this move will help prevent young people from becoming addicted to nicotine and protect the environment. Belgium's health minister, while announcing the ban, described electronic cigarettes as an extremely harmful product. Is this move a good decision? And what are different groups saying? Joining us today to summarize the situation in the country after two months of implementing the ban is Alberto Gómez Hernández, policy manager at the World Vapors Alliance. Hello, Alberto. Let's start with what the key reasons were behind Belgium's decision to ban the sale of disposable e-cigarettes.
01:27
Alberto Gómez Hernández: Well, it's very simple. It's something that happens in many countries, and the Belgian government just justified the ban on disposable e-cigarettes, on disposable vapes, primarily on two things, two arguments. One of them is the environmental concerns, and the other one is just protection. So what they claimed is that single-use vapes essentially contribute to plastic and to electronic waste, which to be honest, it can be true if they are not properly recycled, but it can not be an argument or a justification for a straight ban of them. And again, they also claim that these products are appealing to young people and that they increase youth experimentation with nicotine and ultimately act as a gateway of young people into smoking. So with these two reasons, they decided to ban the sale of single-use vapes. It entered into force almost two months ago, the 1st of January, And while we think that these issues, these concerns that the government have are something that we should be taking seriously, so environmental issues and youth prevention, but I think that outright bans are clearly not the solution for it. And other measures could be more effective and balanced, such as recycling programs, street tax verification systems, et cetera.
02:43
Joanna Junak: So behind environmental concerns and youth protection issues, did officials cite the harmful effects of substances in vaping products as a reason for this decision? And are these claims at all justified?
03:00
Alberto Gómez Hernández: There really is not any evidence of that. There's no evidence that disposable vapes contain any substances that are uniquely harmful compared to any other vaping products. So one thing is that the belgian health minister van den broek he argued that these products contain nicotine and that nicotine is harmful well first of all this product do contain nicotine but nicotine is present in other vaping products as well and they have not been banned it's also present in nicotine replacement therapy products such as nicotine gums or patches that are legal in belgium and Obviously, the ban was not based on any scientific arguments that these products are harmful to health. He said that nicotine is harmful, which is obviously not true. It's a complete lie. And ironically, he's just pushing users towards black market and unregulated products, which can carry greater health risks. So he is increasing the health risk and the harmfulness of products himself.
04:02
Joanna Junak: So how do the people of Belgium view this change?
04:06
Alberto Gómez Hernández: Well, obviously, opinions vary a lot. It depends on who you ask. For non-vapers or people that is not aware of these products or harm reduction, this ban might at first seem reasonable. For adult vapers who use disposables to not use cigarettes or for smokers that could potentially use disposable vapes to start vaping or to try vaping at first, this is a major setback. And many smokers who switched to disposables before they fully transitioned to other types of vapes obviously disagree with this ban. Retailers also disagree with this ban. They think that other options could have been taken to protect the environment and the youth.
04:51
Joanna Junak: And vaping organizations, what do they say?
04:55
Alberto Gómez Hernández: Well, all consumers organizations, including us, the World Repairs Alliance, we strongly oppose the ban of disposable vapes. We think it's not based on harm reduction principles or health protection, youth protection, or environmental protection. It is just a political ban. It's going to do nothing to reduce smoking rates or to prevent young people from smoking or vaping. The local organizations and retailers are very concerned about it. We think that this one is ultimately going to hurt lawful business, legitimate businesses, and it's going to fuel the illicit market. So really nobody within the community is happy. Only those who propose the ban and their reasons that are not true are happy with it.
05:41
Joanna Junak: Bejem's goal is to achieve smoke-free status by 2040. So what other steps are they taking to achieve this goal?
05:51
Alberto Gómez Hernández: Yeah, by 2040. Well, Belgium has implemented a lot of tobacco control measures like higher cigarette taxes, plain packaging, smoking bans in public places, etc. However, smoking still remains relatively high. a current policies fail to embrace reduction products for example um nicotine pouches are also the sale of nicotine patches is also banned in the country there are no heated tobacco products because the same restrictions as to conventional cigarettes are applied so the country is really not put in options for smokers to switch. And this has been reflected in the smoking rates. Well, we know that the goal of the EU is to have a smoking rate below 5% by 2040. That's all considered a smoke-free goal. At the current trend of reduction after TPD2, Belgium will only achieve this result by 2060, so 20 years later. So obviously, if Belgium wants to reach the EU 2040 smoke-free goal, It must stop fighting vaping, it must stop fighting nicotine pouches, heated tobacco products and embrace these alternatives and have a smoker switch to them.
07:02
Joanna Junak: Okay, so looking at the regulation of disposable e-cigarettes with Belgium's move and France's recent decision to ban them, can we say that these two examples will be the first of many?
07:18
Alberto Gómez Hernández: Well, we currently see that this is a trend in many European countries. Very recently, also, Bulgaria decided to get on board and propose a full ban on vaping, which we don't think is going to happen because it's not compliant with EU law. But definitely, we think that they are going to ban disposable vapes. Spain also wants to ban disposable babes, the Spanish Ministry of Health. We think that there are many countries that are going to try to do it. Even the EU might try to do it with the next TPD, but we see it as something very harmful to public health.
07:51
Joanna Junak: Thank you, Alberto. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. And make sure to check out our social media pages for the latest updates on this year's Global Forum on Nicotine conference. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.