Prices and ecigarette demand in the EU
Prices and ecigarette demand in the EU: A presentation by Michal Stoklosa of the American Cancer Society USA at the Global Forum on Nicotine
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by Dave Cross
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The ACS may have made some moves towards acceptance of the efficacy of electronic cigarettes to help smokers quit traditional tobacco, but their position remains contrary to the ethos of harm reduction: “Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, including supposed non-nicotine e-cigarettes, should also be prohibited in all workplaces, restaurants, and bars to protect against secondhand exposure to nicotine and other potentially harmful chemicals, to ensure the enforcement of existing smoke-free laws are not compromised, and that the public health benefits of a smoke-free laws are not undermined.”
On its website, the ACS claims: “When the solutions in ENDS are heated, they release acetaldehyde and formaldehyde – known toxins. The flavourings in the solutions may also be toxic. Studies have shown that e-cigarettes can cause short-term lung changes that are much like those caused by regular cigarettes. But long-term health effects are still unclear. This is an active area of research, but right now not much is known about the safety of these products.”
Michal Stoklosa’s presentation spoke about ecig economics and how taxation can be used as a tool to improve public health, in his opinion. He referred to two studies they carried out in his speech, based on an economic claim that the higher the price of a product the lower its consumption. To illustrate this, he showed that there is a large variation across Europe between cigarette use and cigarette taxation. As other European countries adopt more punitive taxation on cigarettes their consumption begins to approach that found in the United Kingdom.
He looked at supermarket ecig purchase data provided from Nielsen for six European countries: Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and the UK. The results indicate that as prices of vaping products goes up purchases fall – leading to a conclusion that vapers are far more price sensitive than smokers, this could be due to young people moving to vaping having less disposable income.
Conversely, increasing the price of traditional tobacco products leads to an increase in vape sales. This, Stoklosa posits, can lead to improvements in public health and individual health benefits.
Oddly, He then went on to draw a correlation between employment rates and electronic cigarette sales. He believes that as income goes up people can afford to vape more. Unfortunately, this does no more than emphasise a lack of comprehension of why or how people vape. It is perfectly possible to draw a link between other spurious factors: for example, Japan’s population has been sliding for the last five years. Nobody would seriously consider that its population falling by 1 million caused the boom in global vaping.
Correlation does not imply causation. Unemployment reduces disposable income and therefore, logic would dictate, makes vaping more attractive to British smokers as it’s cheaper. Stoklosa argues that it is the initial cost of the starter kit that acts as the barrier that “might just prevent them from switching from regular cigarette use.”
He, and ACS, believes that higher taxes can be used to “deter a surge of new nicotine addiction and harm caused by e-cigarettes.” This ignores the reports by Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians that both maker the point that there is no such surge. Not even a trickle. What he advocates is rising the taxes of both vape products AND cigarettes in order to maintain a price incentive to switch but act as a barrier to entry. We are certain that many vapers will not share his enthusiasm for unnecessary taxation.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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