(Lab):...A
recent article in the Observer highlighted that a supplier working
on behalf of British American Tobacco had been
caught handing out BAT’s popular e-cigarette brand
Vype to a 17 year-old without carrying out any kind of age check.
This clearly contravenes the spirit of the existing regulations,
which set the age of sale at 18 to protect children from using
e-cigarettes. While evidence shows that e-cigarettes are likely to
be significantly less harmful than tobacco cigarettes and can be
effective in supporting adult smokers to quit smoking, it is of
course absolutely vital that children are prevented from taking up
vaping because, while it is a lot less harmful than smoking, it is
not risk free...
...BAT would no doubt argue that this was a
one-off and that it is serious about preventing underage access to
vaping products. However, I have to say that it is another example
of big tobacco saying one thing and doing another. The tobacco
industry, and BAT in particular, has a track
record of trying to get around legislation designed to protect
children across the world from tobacco company marketing. In 2019,
BATwas investigated by the Advertising Standards
Authority for promoting its Vype e-cigarettes to young people on
social media. There, the company used Instagram hashtags completely
unrelated to Vype or its product features to link Vype to
significant cultural and popular current events. That meant that
anyone, including children and young people, searching for things
such as the 2019 Oscars, the best actor, the BAFTAs or London
Fashion Week, would have seen promotions for Vype e-cigarettes.
One BAT Instagram post included the hashtag
#LilyAllen, which includes nearly 83,000 Instagram posts and
could be seen by anyone searching for #LilyAllen on the platform.
This was described by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids as a
concerted, consistent, systematic approach to
BAT’s online promotion of its Vype nicotine
e-cigarettes, outside the guidance and the Tobacco and Related
Products Regulations 2016. The ASA subsequently ruled that
BAT’s celebrity-driven ads
“clearly went beyond the provision of factual information and was
promotional in nature”...
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