Britain will encourage up to a million smokers to switch from e-cigarettes to vaping and offer financial incentives to pregnant women to make the switch, the British government announced on Tuesday.
Under the plan, approximately one in five smokers will receive a starter kit, consisting of an electronic cigarette, along with support materials to help smokers quit, the Department of Health (DoH) explained.
Pregnant women will also be offered a voucher to help them quit smoking, as part of the UK government’s aim to reduce the number of smokers from 13% of the population to 5% or less.
“Up to two in three smokers will die from smoking,” Health Minister Neil O’Brien said in a speech. » We will offer one million smokers new help to quit smoking. We will establish a new nation of ‘quiet change’, the first of its kind in the world.”
Although smoking rates are higher on a global average than in the UK, tobacco remains the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the country, Health said.
The Government has implemented 68m local authority measures to stop people smoking in 2021-22, leading hundreds of thousands of smokers to quit and putting pressure on the UK NHS.
Vaping, however, has its critics, and health officials have warned that its popularity among young people is a threat to economies whose long-term effects are unclear.
Figures from the British Health Service show that 9% of 11-15 year olds in the UK will have used e-cigarettes by 2021, up from 6% three years ago. The government said it would invest in the fight to prevent the illegal sale of vaping devices to under-18s.
