Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Written Evidence Submitted by Prof Jon Berrick to the Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee (TVB63).

Submitted by ( (in personal capacity)

1. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important legislation, which marks a major step forward in the decades-long fight against the tobacco epidemic.

"The harmful effects of smoking are roughly equivalent to the combined good ones of every medical intervention developed since the war. Those who smoke, in other words, now have the same life expectancy as if they were nonsmokers without access to any health care developed in the last half-century. Getting rid of smoking provides more benefit than being able to cure people of every possible type of cancer." Dr Druin Burch, Taking the Medicine: A Short History of Medicine’s Beautiful Idea, and Our Difficulty Swallowing It (London: Chatto & Windus, 2009), 238.

2. I strongly encourage the Committee to read my article "Guidance for introducing the Tobacco-Free Generation policy" which has just been published in The International Journal of Health Planning and Management and is written for policymakers like yourselves. It is based on experiences of negotiations regarding TFG (an umbrella term including Smoke-Free Generation policies) in a wide number of jurisdictions, from national to local.

3. Topics of special administrative interest relating to the present legislation include:

a) the importance of an effective retail licensing system;

b) the desirability of a skilful education campaign to encourage compliance among the smoke-free generation;

c) the need for greater provision of cessation support as tobacco consumption denormalizes.

Moreover, the first of these can provide financial support for the other two.

4. For the future, I would expect keen monitoring of the progress of policy through 2027 and onwards. As consumption of cigarettes becomes more rare among the smoke-free generations, the need for the "safety valve" of availability of vapes for those already addicted through cigarettes becomes increasingly irrelevant. It then becomes desirable to transition to a nicotine-free generation policy, introducing a cut-off birthdate for nicotine sales too. The new Australian legislation offers an alternative strategy for dealing with this issue; it is worth monitoring that too.

5. Emeritus Professor Jon Berrick held positions at Oxford, Imperial College London and National University of Singapore before (2012) becoming the inaugural Professor of Science (Mathematics) at Yale-NUS College. He researches in mathematics (receiving Singapore’s National Science Award) and tobacco control (for which he devised the Tobacco-Free Generation policy). He also holds Honorary Professorships at The University of Sydney and Western Sydney University, and is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society.

January 2025.