UK Health Minister’s Smoke-Free 2030 Speech: Cutting Smoking and Stopping Children From Using E-ciga

Today's news, April 12, according to foreign news today, in a speech at Policy Exchange, British Minister of Health and Social Care Neil O'Brien elaborated on what the government will do to reduce smoking rates and address the problem of minorse-cigarettesQuestion steps. The following is the full text of the speech:

I am very happy to be here today to attend the policy exchange meeting to explain the government's next steps in e-cigarettes and smoking.

Everyone agrees that we must first do more to prevent disease-not just treat it afterwards.

Quitting smoking is one of the most evidence-based and effective interventions we can take.

That is why in 2019, this government set out its ambition to make England smoke-free by 2030-reducing smoking rates to 5% or lower.

Everyone knows the impact of smoking on health.

Sadly, it remains the largest single cause of preventable disease and death in England.

As many as two-thirds of lifetime smokers will die from smoking.

Cigarettes are the only product that will kill you if used incorrectly.

The positive effects of quitting smoking are immediate. For those who quit smoking, lung function improved by 10% after just a few weeks, blood circulation improved, and the risk of a heart attack was half that of a smoker a year after quitting.

The people who quit today are the people who will not be in a hospital bed next year. So quitting smoking will help us achieve the fourth of the Prime Minister's five priorities-reducing waiting lists.

But in addition to the impact on health, the impact of smoking on the economy is also huge.

The excellent 2010 policy exchange paper, CoughUp, points out that it is a popular myth that smoking is a net contributor to the economy.

In fact, ASH's latest analysis of the cost of smoking in the UK in 2022 found that the total cost of smoking to public finances is £ 21 billion.

Talk to you-people used to argue that although the NHS paid a price for smoking, it was offset by the taxes paid.

But this ignores the fact that smokers are more likely to get sick and unemployed than non-smokers, and are more likely to be unwell for a long time. Smokers spend an average of 2.7 more days absent per year than non-smokers.

Reducing smoking rates not only improves health and reduces the burden on the NHS, but also increases productivity and economic growth.

Compared with never-smokers, current smokers are 7.5% less likely to find employment, and quitters are 5% more likely to find employment than current smokers.

In places such as Birmingham, another 6,000 people have lost their jobs due to smoking. Quitting smoking can help correct this situation.

In addition to the impact on productivity, quitting smoking can save the average person about £ 2,000 a year.

In poorer areas of the country, smoke-free may mean more money is flowing through the local economy. There are positive productivity benefits, but it also helps improve levels across the country.

Today, in addition to solving the problem of smoking, I also want to address a new threat... the growth of e-cigarettes among children.

The number of children using e-cigarettes-especially disposable e-cigarettes-has increased sharply. NHS data for 2021 shows that 9% of children aged 11 to 15 use e-cigarettes, up from 6% in 2018. We need to stop this rapid upward trend.

Whether it's brightly colored, low-priced, cartoon characters sold for children or disposable e-cigarettes suitable for children's tastes...

... or it is indeed the product being sold that does not comply with our content rules.

Today, we are stepping up our efforts to stop children from becoming addicted to e-cigarettes. Here's my message: If your business plan relies on making children addicted to nicotine, we'll come to you.

So I'm leaving today

What measures will we take to stop children and non-smokers from starting to use e-cigarettes...

How we will leverage the potential of e-cigarettes as a powerful tool for quitting smoking.

and how we will help more people quit smoking, especially in places with the highest rates.

I would like to thank Javed Khan for his independent review, which helped inform our many next steps.# p#pagination title #e#

I would also like to thank Bob Blackman, as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health (APPG), who has been an active advocate for putting smoking on the public health agenda.

Let me start with e-cigarettes.

We need to do two things:

On the one hand, prevent children from smoking e-cigarettes.

On the other hand, leveraging the huge potential of e-cigarettes to help adult smokers quit smoking.

As I mentioned, NHS 2021 data shows that 9% of children aged 11 to 15 will use e-cigarettes in 2021-an upward trend.

Dr. Mike McKean, the Royal Pediatrician and Vice Chairman of Policy at the College of Child Health, estimates that the prevalence may be higher now.

I think many of us as parents worry about the health of our children and their addiction to nicotine. The chief medical officer present today also expressed concern about the use of e-cigarettes by children. I would also like to pay tribute to my colleague Caroline Johnson for highlighting this issue.

That is why today, as part of our efforts to stop people starting smoking and using e-cigarettes, we are specifically calling for evidence of e-cigarette use among young people to determine reducing exposure and use.e-cigarette productsopportunities for the number of children-and explore where governments can go further. We will look at where we can go beyond what the EU Tobacco Products Directive allows us to do.

This will explore a range of issues, including how we ensure compliance, view the appearance and characteristics of e-cigarettes, the marketing and promotion of e-cigarettes, and the crucial role of social media. It will also seek to better understande-cigarette market, study issues such as the price of low-cost products and disposable items.

We are also working closely with colleagues at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to consider the environmental impact of e-cigarettes-especially disposable e-cigarettes, which are very attractive to young people. In 2022, 52% of young people with e-cigarettes use disposable products, compared with only 8% in 2021.

More than 1.3 million disposable e-cigarettes are thrown away every week. This accumulates to 10 tons of lithium per year, equivalent to a staggering 1,200 electric vehicles 'lithium batteries.

The collection of evidence will be open over the next 8 weeks.

We hope that all relevant people will take this opportunity to share their perspectives to help shape our future, especially for our young people.

We are already taking action to enforce existing rules.

I was very worried to hear about certain disposable e-cigarette products that did not meet our regulatory standards. Elfbar made in China has a particular problem.

We worked closely with MHRA and the Department of Trade Standards to agree to voluntarily withdraw some of these products from the UK market. Some large supermarkets such as Tesco set a good example by working within their distribution networks and ensuring that all their products meet requirements.

I urge other retail departments and e-cigarette manufacturers to follow suit and comply with our e-cigarette product rules. If they don't, they could face unlimited fines. Companies that do not comply with the law will be held accountable.

To that end, I can announce today that we will further enforce the rules.

Working closely with our law enforcement agencies and learning from our work on standards for the illegal tobacco trade, we will provide £ 3 million in new funding to create a dedicated flying team to enforce rules on e-cigarettes and address illegal e-cigarettes and underage sales.

The national plan will help share knowledge and intelligence-including on organized criminal groups-among regional networks.

It will strengthen training and enforcement capabilities in trade standards and carry out specific projects such as trial purchases in convenience stores and e-cigarette stores. We will develop guidelines to help establish compliance. We will remove illegal products from shelves and at our borders, and we will conduct more testing to ensure compliance with our rules.

But while we want to ensure that children do not smoke e-cigarettes, e-cigarettes can play an important role in helping governments achieve their 2030 smoke-free goals.

E-cigarettes are actually a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we don't want children to become addicted to any substance at a very early age.

But on the other hand, for adults, e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking, and we now have high-quality evidence from Oxford University that e-cigarettes are more effective as a smoking cessation tool than nicotine gum or patches, but not dangerous.

This is especially true when they are combined with additional behavioral support provided by local smoking cessation services.

It is estimated that in England, e-cigarettes cause approximately 50 - 70,000 additional people to quit smoking every year.

However, the use of e-cigarettes is not widespread enough to realize its full potential as a smoking cessation aid, demonstrating its potential power as a tool.

The Swap Stop Partnership is a program that provides smokers with an e-cigarette starter kit as well as behavioral support to help them quit completely.

In many areas, such as Bath, Southampton, Sheffield and Plymouth, there are already successful local pilots of Swap Stop programs...

Drawing lessons from these proven pilots, I am pleased to announce today that we will fund a new national replacement program-the first of its kind in the world.

We will work with Parliament and other agencies to provide a free e-cigarette starter kit to 1 million smokers across England. Smokers joining the program, which will initially run over the next two years, must meet one condition-they promise to quit smoking with support. For our part, we will make it as simple as possible, recommend people to use smoking cessation services, and develop a digital way to help people quit smoking. Once completed, we will provide support to those who also want to continue smoking.

We will first target communities with the greatest risk-focusing on environments such as job centers, homeless centers and social housing providers. We also hope to work with retailers in this process.

The first of these exciting projects will be located in the Northeast. I have worked with local councils in Northumberland, Gateshead, South Tyneside and Hartlepool to start joint smoking cessation programs in their poorest communities.

The program represents an exciting opportunity to leverage the potential of e-cigarettes as a tool to help smokers quit smoking.

The latest international research shows that smokers who use e-cigarettes every day are three times more likely to quit smoking, interestingly, even if they don't actually plan to quit.

As a result, we will provide a million smokers with new smoking cessation help.

Now let me talk about the other steps we will take to quit smoking and start smoking.

Let me start with the next step in addressing illegal and underage sales.

To take action against violators, we must first protect legitimate stores from being bargained.

But we also know that this is important to prevent minors from starting smoking because illegal tobacco and sales to minors are closely related.

We have implemented a successful new cigarette and hand-rolled tobacco tracking system across the UK to stop illegal sales.

The system requires the use of a unique ID code applied to the product to track all cigarettes and hand-rolled tobacco from the manufacturer to the first retailer.

Track and Trace will be extended to all tobacco products in May 2024. This means not only tracking cigarettes and hand-rolled tobacco, but also cigars, cigarillos, hookah and other tobacco.

Operation CeCe, the UK-wide intelligence hub between HMRC and national trade standards, also strengthens our efforts to combat illegal tobacco, for which we have provided long-term funding.

Operation CeCe removed more than £ 7 million worth of illegal tobacco products from shelves in its first year and prevented more illegal activity.

HMRC has also introduced stricter additional sanctions to track and retroactively to deter repeated violations, including new civil fines of up to £ 10,000 for more serious violations.

I can also announce that this year HMRC and Border Force will release an updated strategy to combat illegal tobacco.

It will strategically outline how we continue to target, capture and punish those involved in the illegal tobacco market.

If you supply tobacco sold in the UK, you must register for Tobacco Tracking and Tracking and obtain an Economic Operator ID.

We want to start using this existing system in a new way-to help strengthen law enforcement and target illegal markets.

From now on, we will confiscate anyone who sells illegal tobacco products, delete their economic operator ID cards, and they will no longer be able to buy and sell tobacco.

We are also exploring how to share information about who is registered on the tracking system with local partners so that they know who has the legal rights and who has no right to sell tobacco locally, which can help drive enforcement.

Now, of course, some people will go one step further to prevent people from starting smoking. Khan commented on last year's promotion of New Zealand's practice of comprehensive smoking cessation, and over time, the age of sales has gradually increased to cover all adults.# p#pagination title #e#

This would be a far cry from the policies of recent decades that have emphasized personal responsibility and helped people quit smoking. Our focus is on helping current smokers quit smoking.

And, we can do more to help people quit smoking.

More than half of smokers-or 3 million people-want to quit smoking. One million of these people want to quit smoking in the next three months.

But nicotine is easily addictive. We know that 95% of unsupported smoking cessation attempts relapse within a year.

So we will do more to help people quit smoking.

First, we will use the latest treatments-proven to give smokers a greater chance of quitting.

Some of the most cost-effective treatments we have are currently not available in England. We are working closely with suppliers to make it easier for prescribers to obtain licenses and put licensed drugs into the hands of those who can benefit most from it. For example, ensure that proven smoking cessation drugs such as varenicline and cysteine are available. We have been working urgently with companies to address supply chain issues to support more people who want to quit smoking.

Secondly, we will add services through a new comprehensive care system to make the NHS more like a national preventive service.

The pioneering work being done by the Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board-is taking the lead in investing local health service resources and organizing local systems to give a local voice in reducing smoking rates in the poorest communities. In April, this month, they will launch a comprehensive tobacco control plan. They will be the first to implement many of our national programs, including providing incentives for pregnant women to quit smoking, providing e-cigarettes as first-line cessation assistance in local smoking cessation services, lung health screening, and joining local services to combat illegal tobacco.

I encourage all other ICBs to follow their example and establish similar partnerships with local authorities to develop effective tobacco control plans. This is a good example of a comprehensive care system working together to promote prevention.

Third, we help pregnant women quit smoking.

Nationally, 9% of women still smoke during pregnancy-but in some areas, smoking affects nearly a quarter of newborns. Of course, smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of stillbirth, miscarriage and sudden infant death.

All maternity services in England are establishing ways to ensure that all pregnant women have quick access to smoking cessation support. We have widely rolled out carbon monoxide testing for mothers.

Recently, financial incentive programs have been shown to be effective in increasing the number of pregnant women who successfully quit smoking. In the trial, women who received financial rewards were more than twice as likely to quit smoking. The return on investment for these plans is £ 4 for every £ 1 invested.

These plans have achieved results in many places, including Greater Manchester, where maternal smoking rates have dropped the most in the past two years.

So today we are announcing, based on local evidence, that we will provide a financial incentive plan for all pregnant women who smoke by the end of next year.

This will benefit the child and mother throughout life.

Fourth, further help people with mental health problems quit smoking.

People with mental health problems are more than twice as likely to smoke as smokers. They will die 10 to 20 years earlier, and the biggest factor is smoking.

Smoking helps anxiety is a common misconception. In fact, smoking increases anxiety and depression. Quitting smoking has proven to be as effective as taking antidepressants.

So we will work with mental health services to improve the roadmap for evidence-based support for smokers. At the very least, all mental health practitioners can provide a roadmap for a specially developed, evidence-based digital smoking cessation resource.

Fifth, to help people quit smoking, we will adopt a new health warning approach.

Since 1991, cigarette packs have included warnings on the front of them. We will continue to do this, but we also want to give hope to people and connect them with the best support in a carefree way.

We will be consulting this year on introducing mandatory cigarette package inserts that include positive messages and messages to help people quit smoking. Health-promoting inserts are required by law in Canada and have existed since 2000. Empirical evidence from Canada suggests that packaging inserts are an effective measure to increase the number of people trying to quit smoking.

We have commissioned Stirling University to test adult smokers and young people in the UK to help achieve this goal.

We are exploring how to best use innovative methods in this, such as using QR codes to make it as easy as possible for people to get help quitting smoking. You can take a photo with your phone and be taken straight to smoking cessation support, the kind I've been talking about throughout this talk.# p#pagination title #e#

Overall, there is overwhelming evidence that quitting smoking not only has significant health and economic benefits.

This is crucial to extending healthy life expectancy, especially increasing minimum levels of life.

This is why today we are:

Prevent the development of e-cigarettes among children;

Provide new smoking cessation help to 1 million smokers.

Strengthen enforcement of illegal sales;

Expand access to new therapies;

Support joint and integrated methods;

Launch a national incentive plan to help pregnant women quit smoking;

Use modern technology to consult new packaging instructions;

All of these are ways we help people quit smoking.

These proposals to achieve our 2030 smoke-free goals are some of the most innovative in the world.

They will provide more people with the help they need to quit smoking permanently.

So thank you to all the experts here today who provided ideas for today's presentation-I look forward to your questions.

Released on April 11, 2023