Wales Holding Smoke-free Consultation
Wales has opened up a consultation exercise to allow interested parties to comment on plans ‘A smoke-free Wales’ and ‘Towards a smoke-free Wales delivery plan 2022 to 2024’
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by Dave Cross
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“We want your views on our draft long-term strategy: ‘A smoke-free Wales’ and ‘Towards a smoke-free Wales delivery plan 2022 to 2024’,” says the Welsh administration.
It says it is consulting on how the strategy will help the principality to become smoke-free in Wales by 2030 – and this is defined as meaning that less than 5% of adults in Wales are smokers.
It says the actions from its first delivery plan supporting the strategy include:
- making smoke-free the norm in Wales
- supporting groups and communities that have higher levels of smoking
- tackling the sale of illegal tobacco
It has appointed various bodies to its Tobacco Control Strategic Board, including the pro-vaping Royal College of Physicians.
Lynne Neagle, the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing says: “The negative impacts of smoking on our health and wellbeing are well known. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable ill health and premature death in Wales.
“This strategy sets out our vision for a smoke-free Wales and how we will work to achieve it. It focuses on reducing the inequalities in smoking, increasing the proportion of children and young people who have a smoke-free childhood, and ensuring that there is a whole-system approach to a smoke-free Wales.”
The plan pledges to:
- Create an environment where smoke-free is the norm for all children and young people in Wales.
- Increase the proportion of smoke-free pregnancies in Wales
- Promote a smoke-free childhood and aim to break generational smoking patterns to achieve a smoke-free generation
- Make smoke free the norm to deter social smoking amongst children and young people
- Increase the proportion of teenagers and young people who remain smoke-free by reducing the uptake of smoking, whilst also discouraging the uptake of e-cigarettes or other nicotine products in teenagers and young people
- Identify the groups of children and young people who are at higher risk of taking up smoking, and work with them to identify ways to help them to remain smoke-free
- Identify priority groups of children and young people who have a higher prevalence of smoking, and work with them to understand their reasons for smoking, and provide evidence based targeted support to quit smoking
The plan pledges to “ensure consistent application of evidence-based tobacco control interventions”, which should be welcome given the anti-vaping/pro-lies approach previously favoured by Mark Drakeford when he was attempting to ban vaping.
Further details of the consultation can be found here: https://gov.wales/tobacco-control-strategy-wales-and-delivery-plan
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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