Recently, governments have announced that they will levy the same tax on e-cigarette liquids as cigarettes, ban the use of disposable e-cigarettes, and limit the taste of e-cigarette liquids. This leads people to wonder why e-cigarettes are starting to be more strictly regulated than alcohol.

While both are considered age-restricted products, why is one more likely to be considered illegal?

In 2021, the number of alcohol-related deaths in the UK reached a record high of 20,970 (38.5 per 100,000 people), with an average of around 57.45 people killed every day.

According to research by the UK's Medicines and Health Food Regulatory Agency (MHRA), there have been only three deaths linked to e-cigarette products in the UK since May 2016.

It may be argued that the high death rate caused by alcohol is because alcohol is strictly controlled, while e-cigarettes are relatively relaxed.

The sale and use of alcoholic beverages and vaping

When you walk into any licensed store, you will find shelves and aisles displaying various types and brands of alcohol products that you can remove from the shelves, put in your shopping basket and take home to enjoy.

You can look up alcohol products via the Internet, and you can also see alcohol brands as sponsors of major sports teams at sporting events. Whether on social media, TV commercials, TV shows, movies or billboards, alcohol advertising is everywhere and children and families are exposed to it every day.

Teens with the highest exposure to alcohol advertising consumed 200 or more drinks per month. Studies have shown that the more alcohol advertisements children see, the more alcohol brands they drink.

However, from 2024, all e-cigarette brands' online information must remain private, and the promotion of e-cigarettes is already in breach of advertising regulations.

Some stores allow the sale of single-use e-cigarettes and e-cigarette products without the need for an e-cigarette license. In addition, these products are often placed behind glass cases or behind checkout counters to keep them out of reach of minors.

So why is one product widely publicized and the other not?

If teen vaping is already considered an epidemic, is vaping among kids a cause for concern? Why does the government think that alcohol licences are sufficient to prevent children from drinking, but it has not done something similar with e-cigarettes?

E-cigarettes have been around since the early 2000s, and teen vaping didn't take off until disposable e-cigarettes were sold in unregulated brick-and-mortar stores.

Online vape stores, physical vape stores and supermarkets that comply with TPD regulations all sell disposable products that comply with TPD regulations. These products must not contain more than 2 ml of nicotine e-liquid, and any device that claims to contain more nicotine or a larger size, as well as a device that emits light when inhaled, are illegal.

However, these disposable e-cigarettes are easily purchased by minors. While online stores conduct strict age verification to ensure that people over the age of 18 are buying TPD compliant devices, vape stores also follow the rules.

As you can see, one is everywhere, the other is restricted and more restrictions are being imposed.

An introduction to alcohol and e-liquids

One reason e-cigarettes are "attractive" to minors is e-liquid bottles and disposable e-cigarette packaging.

At DesonVape, we believe that childish cartoon characters should not appear on e-cigarette products, but why is the packaging of alcoholic beverages so racy?

The government's discussions stressed that e-cigarette packaging should be consistent with traditional tobacco products - in black and brown, using standard fonts, and with warning images and text printed on the packaging.

However, alcohol brands can use bright packaging and fun designs, and even have sombrero motifs printed on bottle caps, which does not seem to be seen as appealing to children.

Standardizing e-cigarette products on the same basis as cigarettes is not effective in preventing underage use of e-cigarettes, but may lead smokers who wish to quit using e-cigarettes to mistake e-cigarettes for being as harmful as cigarettes, which we will explore in depth in the following sections.

Although alcohol is restricted to those over 18, Challenge 25 is still available in compliant stores to buy similar energy drinks, which contain 7.5 per cent alcohol by volume, almost as much caffeine as three espresso shots and cost less than £3 a can. Why are there no regulations on this?

According to research by the Portman Group in the UK, four out of five complaints about alcohol marketing and packaging in 2022 relate to its appeal to under-18s.

The goal of e-cigarettes is not to attract minors, but to entice smokers to switch to healthier nicotine alternatives.

Limiting the flavors of e-cigarette liquids to make them less appealing to children contrasts with the rich flavor options of alcoholic beverages, which include tart cherry, strawberry cream, skittles, watermelon, chocolate cream.

If these flavored drinks do not trigger the youth drinking trend, then the flavoring of e-cigarettes should not be the cause of youth e-cigarette use.

While the alcohol market has long been criticized, it is puzzling that e-cigarettes have received so much blame.

The Health Factors

There are many misconceptions about the health effects of e-cigarettes, but the following points show that e-cigarettes are safer than traditional cigarettes:

According to the UK's National Health Service (NHS), e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful to health than cigarettes.

E-cigarettes do not release tar or carbon monoxide.

If 50% of smokers in the UK switched to e-cigarettes, hospital admissions would be cut by 13%, saving the NHS £518 million a year, according to a new study.

Vaping around other people poses virtually no risk of secondhand smoke.

E-cigarettes are the most effective smoking cessation AIDS.

Transitioning to e-cigarettes is relatively simple and it's easier to get rid of nicotine than quitting altogether.

Both we and the NHS advise you not to start using e-cigarettes if you have never smoked before.

When you see people being hospitalized or, in rare cases, dying from vaping, it's usually because they've used illegal e-cigarette products that contain banned ingredients. In 2023, more than 4.5 million non-compliant single-use e-cigarettes were seized at the UK border, and these products were the root cause of vaping-related illness rather than regulated, compliant e-cigarettes.

It is well known that long-term heavy drinking can cause:

Alcoholism

Liver damage

Cardiovascular disease

Cancer risk

So far, excessive use of e-cigarettes is known to cause:

Throat and mouth inflammation

headache

cough

Feel ill

Although e-cigarettes are a relatively new product and there is a lack of in-depth research on their long-term use, there is currently no good evidence that e-cigarettes cause cancer.

For alcohol addicts, kicking the habit can be a daunting task, despite trying multiple treatments, group interventions, and resources to help stay sober. As a form of nicotine replacement therapy, e-cigarettes are able to help those who are addicted to cigarettes not only reduce their nicotine intake, but also give them more control over the quitting process.

The NHS, ASH and other health organisations see e-cigarettes as a successful and effective smoking cessation tool.

If e-cigarettes are viewed as similar to traditional tobacco products, smokers may not choose e-cigarettes as a means to quit smoking. A June 2023 study revealed that 57 percent of respondents believe e-cigarettes are as harmful as or more harmful than smoking, further adding to the public's misconceptions about e-cigarettes and the benefits they can bring in the process of quitting smoking.

social impact

The health risks of drinking alcohol are not only more serious than vaping, but also differ significantly on a societal level.

Drinking and drunken behaviour is widely accepted in the UK. Alcohol is involved in almost every celebration, and many people even consider it unusual not to drink alcohol during a celebration.

The love of drinking was especially evident during Prohibition in the United States in the 1920s, when illegal bars and speakeasies sprang up in many towns so that people could drink, dance and socialize in secret.

Nowadays, the act of drinking and getting drunk is so widely accepted that few question why people fall into the habit of drinking so easily.

However, which is more harmful to society, vaping or drunkenness?

When you go out, which people do you choose to avoid: noisy people, drunk people, or people who smoke e-cigarettes?

Anti-social behaviour by drunk people is common in Britain. Alcohol-related violent crime is estimated to cost around £1 billion a year.

In addition, alcohol-related offences such as drink driving added a further £627 million in fines, bringing the total cost to the police and criminal justice system to £1.6 billion.

These antisocial behaviors are not caused by nicotine consumption, so why is alcohol so ingrained in our society and seen as the norm, while e-cigarettes are under intense scrutiny?

At DesonVape, we advocate for the use of e-cigarettes as an effective smoking cessation tool to support ex-smokers in their pursuit of a healthier lifestyle.

While other industries subject to age restrictions cause greater harm to the public, the e-cigarette industry has been criticized for the recent phenomenon of youth vaping caused by external factors, which is worth thinking about.

Alternatives to tackling the problem include issuing licences to sell e-cigarette products, increasing trading standards budgets to ensure TPD-compliant products are sold in shops in the UK, and strengthening border enforcement to prevent the importation of illegal e-cigarettes, rather than simply raising taxes, which could make e-cigarettes less appealing and limit flavour options to help smokers quit.

Finally, be sure to drink and vaping responsibly. Choosing a healthy lifestyle and reducing your intake of alcohol and e-cigarettes is the best way to protect your health.