This morning the Government announced a crackdown on vaping. White standardised packs. Devices in one matt shade of white, black or grey. Flavour names on packaging cut to a single recognised word. Vapes hidden from view in shops, tobacco-style.
Here's the bit that might surprise you: we back tougher controls on where vapes are sold. We back stronger youth protection. We'd go further than the Government in some places.
But there's one thing in today's proposals that could genuinely set public health backwards and it's worth two minutes of your time.
WHAT'S ACTUALLY BEEN ANNOUNCED
The Department of Health and Social Care has opened a consultation, not a law, a consultation, on how vapes are packaged, how devices look, and how they're displayed in shops across all four UK nations.
On the table: standardised white vape packs with no imagery, devices limited to a single matt shade of white, black or grey, flavour descriptors on packaging cut to one recognised flavour name, and restricted retail displays. Worth knowing: it does not propose banning flavour ingredients, this is about what the pack says, not what's in the bottle. And there's no display exemption proposed for vape shops, though views are invited on a limited exemption for community pharmacies.
It closes at 11:59pm on 2 October 2026. Nothing changes today, and everyone, including you, gets a say. Hold that thought.
THE PROBLEM: DRESSING THE CURE LIKE THE DISEASE
Start with a number the Government's own consultation confirms: vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking. Not risk-free, not for children, but for an adult smoker, a genuine route away from cigarettes. ASH estimates 2.5 million adults in Britain have quit smoking with a vape in the past five years.
"the most effective switching tool this country has ever had gets quietly filed under "just as bad"."
Now the number that should worry everyone: 54% of adults believe vaping is as harmful as, or more harmful than, smoking. More than half the country has the risk picture exactly wrong β and every smoker who believes it has one less reason to switch.
So what happens when cigarettes and vapes are hidden behind the same shutters, in every shop, in near-identical fashion? Yes, the consultation proposes white packs for vapes and dark brown for tobacco. But the colour isn't the point. If the cure is dressed like the disease, same concealment, same ritual, same counter, smokers will read them as the same kind of product. The 54% grows. And the most effective switching tool this country has ever had gets quietly filed under "just as bad".
Policy should protect children without blurring that distinction. Today's proposals get the first half right and the second half dangerously wrong.
WHERE VAPES ARE SOLD MATTERS MORE THAN WHAT THE PACK LOOKS LIKE
ASH's 2026 survey estimates 6% of 11 to 17-year-olds in Great Britain currently vape, around 370,000 young people. That's the problem to solve, and you don't solve it with a font change.
"Under our own proposal, our non-tobacco flavours would be removed from convenience stores"
Youth access runs through visibility, availability and enforcement, vapes sold alongside sweets in shops children walk into every day. Fix that, and you've actually fixed something.
So here's our proposal, and it's tougher than the Government's in the place it counts:
- General retail, convenience stores and everywhere else children go: plain-packaged, tobacco-flavoured vaping products only, kept behind closed cabinets. Tightly controlled, out of sight, nothing there to catch a child's eye.
- Licensed adult-only specialist vape shops: the full range of flavours and devices, with experienced staff giving adult smokers the advice that actually gets them off cigarettes. A specialist can sit down with a twenty-a-day smoker, find the setup and strength that works, and keep them switched. That's not something a self-service shelf has ever done, plain packaging or not.
And before anyone says "well, you would say that", look at what this means for us. Riot makes flavoured e-liquids. Under our own proposal, our non-tobacco flavours would be removed from convenience stores and every other general retailer, and confined to licensed adult-only specialists. We're arguing for our own products to come off thousands of shelves. That's how strongly we believe the point of sale is the real battleground.
THE MECHANISM ALREADY EXISTS, IT JUST ISN'T SWITCHED ON
The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April. It establishes retail licensing frameworks for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and expands retailer registration in Scotland.
But those provisions aren't operating yet, and the detailed rules are still to be set. To be clear about what's law and what's us: the licensing frameworks are real and on the statute book; the adult-only specialist-store model is our policy proposal for how they should be used. We want ministers to bring those schemes forward and build them around a simple principle, wider choice and expert advice behind an adults-only door, and a plain, tightly controlled offer everywhere else.
That protects children at the point of access. It keeps the route away from cigarettes open. And it draws the line between the cure and the disease instead of erasing it.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW
We'll be submitting our full response before the 2 October deadline, and we'll be making this case directly wherever it can be heard.
If you vape, if you run a vape business, or if you think the 2.5 million people who quit smoking with a vape deserve honest policy, respond to the consultation. It takes minutes, it's public, and it's the one lever every single one of us can pull:
Respond here: https://consultations.dhsc.gov.uk/tobacco-and-vapes-packaging-appearance-and-display
