ASH findings come as questions grow over WHO approach to vaping
VIANZ says new ASH findings highlighting smoking relapse and confusion about relative risk reinforce growing concerns about international approaches to vaping regulation, including calls for flavour bans and the World Health Organization’s increasingly restrictive stance.
VIANZ is concerned that recent calls for broad vaping flavour bans risk obscuring the most important public health issue facing New Zealand: cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death, disease and health inequity.
While protecting young people from nicotine initiation must remain a priority, policy settings must be grounded in evidence and a proportionate understanding of risk. Vaping is not risk-free, but smoking remains substantially more harmful.
Commenting on the findings, VIANZ Chair Jonathan Devery says there is a clear need to ensure public messaging accurately reflects relative harm.
“What we are seeing is increasing confusion about the relative risks of smoking and vaping, and that confusion has real consequences,” says Devery. “If people believe the two are effectively the same, the risk is that fewer smokers switch away from cigarettes, and some former smokers may return to smoking.”
Recent commentary from ASH suggests growing public confusion about the relative risks of vaping and smoking is having unintended consequences. According to ASH, 14% of people were using smoking to quit vaping, while 46% report a return to smoking after vaping. ASH has suggested this trend is being driven, at least in part, by increasing misinformation and confusion about the relative harms of vaping and smoking.
Devery says the findings should prompt a closer look at how vaping is discussed in public health settings.
“These results underline the importance of clear, evidence-based communication,” he says. “We need to be very careful that efforts to reduce youth vaping do not unintentionally reinforce smoking, which remains far more harmful.”
Against this backdrop, VIANZ says the World Health Organization’s increasingly restrictive position on vaping risks underplaying the role regulated vaping products have played in reducing smoking rates in countries such as New Zealand.
New Zealand has seen a rapid decline in smoking prevalence alongside increased uptake of vaping among adult smokers seeking a less harmful alternative.
VIANZ maintains that policy approaches must remain focused on outcomes rather than assumptions.
“The ultimate goal must be reducing smoking-related harm,” he says. “If policy settings or messaging contribute to people continuing to smoke or returning to smoking, then that outcome needs to be carefully considered.”
Calls for flavour bans should therefore be assessed carefully. If public policy contributes to greater confusion about relative risk, the unintended consequence may be more people smoking combustible cigarettes rather than fewer.
New Zealand already has a comprehensive regulatory framework for vaping products, including age restrictions, product notification requirements, advertising controls, specialist retailer obligations and restrictions on flavour availability through general retailers. VIANZ says the priority should be strong enforcement of existing rules, alongside continued action to prevent youth uptake.
VIANZ supports evidence-based regulation that protects young people while preserving access to lower-risk alternatives for adult smokers – public health messaging must remain clear, consistent and accurately reflect the substantially greater risks associated with smoking.
VIANZ believes the focus must remain on reducing smoking, not creating confusion about it.
“Smoking remains the greatest preventable health risk we face,” he concludes. “Anything that unintentionally slows progress away from cigarettes should be examined very carefully.”
Watch: Ben Youdan (ASH) on Herald NOW here
