FEATURE
WORTH
FIGHTING
FOR
LONDON. JUNE 5-6
BY PATRICK GRIFFIN
CONSUMER CHAMPION JUDY E. GIBSON EXPLAINS
WHY THE VAPE INDUSTRY NEEDS TO WIN THE
H E A RTS A N D M I N DS O F T H E N O N -VA P I N G
COMMUNITY.
The global vaping industry is facing a huge marketing problem
– only a very tiny percent of the population actually believe that
safer nicotine choices are worth fighting for.
Judy E. Gibson, Secretary General of the International Network of
Nicotine Consumer Organisations, warned that the industry must
unite and act now to combat the apathy.
She told the ENDS conference that failure to do so could lead to
higher taxes and a missed opportunity to get smokers to switch to
less harmful options such as vaping.
“Most vapers have no idea that their e-liquid is likely to be taxed
by the EU. They don’t have a clue and they won’t have a voice
because the newspapers will probably not carry it or at least not
in a big way.”
She said vaping taxes in Estonia had driven up the price of a
10ml e-liquid bottle to €8 – double the price of a pack of 20
cigarettes. The effects of the tax, she explained, included vapers
switching back to smoking, vape shops going out of business and
a booming black market.
She added: “If you buy a bottle of flavour on its own in an
e-cigarette shop it will be taxed but if you buy it in a cake shop
then it won’t be taxed. It is the same with VG and PG. There is a
huge burgeoning black market going on now because of this so
taxation is a big issue.
“We know there is a huge hue and cry for taxation on e-liquid
124 | VM18
because if everyone was to suddenly decide to start vaping or use
snus or IQOS then the amount of (tobacco tax revenue) would go
down hugely and (many) countries would really have a problem.”
She said sensationalist national newspaper headlines were doing
enormous harm to the industry because most of the population
would believe the ‘junk science’ presented to them by the media.
“When you have junk science happening, no matter how much
one rebuts it, the rebuttal doesn’t go into the newspaper.
“The headline “Vaping is worse than cigarettes” remains in
people’s minds. They only read the headline because they are
not really that bothered about the details.
“In the same way nobody cares much about vape taxes because
not many people vape. We are now reaching a tipping point and
when the majority of the public don’t like vaping then there will be
nobody to push the politicians when it comes to issues like taxes
on vaping and flavour bans.”
She said vape companies should come together to fund a
powerful industry-wide media and marketing campaign to get
the industry some good publicity which would really capture the
public’s imagination.
“The anti-vaping lobby say the same thing over and over again,
things like ‘gateway theory,’ and this is the message which the
public is hearing. We need to counter this with our own message
– something big and bold. Something as powerful as the “Labour
isn’t working” campaign of the 1970s.
“We need to influence the public more because these are the
people who are reading the negative headlines about vaping and
we need to act now because changing their minds will take some
time.”