It’s only taken a year and a half since the full implementation of the TPD, but the Advertising Standards Agency has finally decided to relax their stance on e-cigs.
In some good news for not just the industry, but for the millions of smokers out there who it can be difficult to reach, the ASA has decided that making health claims, such as that made by Public Health England who say that e-cigs are 95% safer than smoking, will no longer be banned from e-cig ads.
While there remains a few questions about how the new rules will work in practice, this is a welcome development.
For a long time, it’s been an odd state of affairs that public health organisations have been allowed to make the case for vaping as a healthier alternative to smoking, but e-cig manufacturers have not. That has now been addressed, at least in part, and means that we’re able to speak more directly to the many smokers out there who are still yet to make the switch, and help change public perception of e-cigs.
As an independent UK manufacturer, who designs all of our own hardware and e-liquid in-house, we feel it’s especially vital that we’re able to talk more openly about the importance of vaping as a means of avoiding the dangers of tobacco.
JAC Vapour CEO, Neil McCallum said of the changes:
“Though the changes are most welcome, the impact will be limited in application due to the bureaucratic nature of the guidance. Once again, we have new rules that should be simple in application being made even more complex than necessary. This unsustainable state of affairs of preventing consumers from making informed decisions on key buying criteria, such as, safety, quality, provenance of ingredients and warranty, must be addressed urgently.”
We look forward to being able to shout (a little) louder about the benefits of switching to e-cigs, and to welcoming new vapers to the fold as a result.