THE LONDON TOBACCO ALLIANCE
A new alliance of experts is pushing hard on getting smokers to switch to vaping to help London become a “smoke free city” by 2030
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by Dave Cross
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“We are the partnership that will make London smokefree by 2030. The London Tobacco Alliance has been created to combine and accelerate efforts to eliminate smoking in London giving us the greatest opportunity to reduce health inequalities. We exist to ensure becoming a smokefree city remains a top public health priority for London,” the London Tobacco Alliance says.
The Alliance aims to create strong partnerships in order to build momentum to help create the smoke free city.
“AS HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS WE HAVE A DUTY TO ENCOURAGE VAPING AMONG ADULT SMOKERS”
The Alliance adds: “We will ensure that becoming smoke free remains a top public health priority for London, supporting its aim to be the world’s healthiest city. London Tobacco Alliance partners will prioritise the health and wellbeing of Londoners to ensure children born today will not be tempted to ever start smoking.”
In a new “Vaping Position Statement, the London Tobacco Alliance states: “Nicotine vaping offers adult smokers an alternative source of nicotine which significantly reduces the harms of smoking. Vaping is the most popular stop smoking aid in use in England.”
“DON'T LET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT VAPING PREVENT YOU FROM RECOMMENDING THIS TOOL TO AN ADULT SMOKER”
It adds: “There is strong and growing evidence including systematic reviews of clinical trials, and consensus across the UK’s leading health organisations, that vaping is substantially less harmful than tobacco smoking although it is not risk-free.
“Despite this, elements of uncertainty and confusion remain amongst the public and some health care professionals. Please note that in this document we discuss ‘nicotine vaping’, which is the LTA’s preferred term to ‘e-cigarette’, in line with the latest review by Kings College London.
The document is a hugely positive step at a time when vaping has been coming under a lot of pressure.
The Alliance continues: “The London Tobacco Alliance (LTA) is committed to making London SmokeFree by 2030, defined as a smoking rate below 5%. We also have a shared ambition to reduce health inequalities in the capital. We can only achieve this through working together, developing, and following effective tobacco control policies, running successful public health campaigns, and delivering evidence-based smoking cessation support and tobacco harm reduction strategies.
“Nicotine vaping as an aid for adult smokers to quit forms part of this approach. This
has been strengthened recently by the government’s announcement of funding to
provide adult smokers with vaping kits; the ‘Swap to Stop’ initiative.”
References:
- The London Tobacco Alliance position statement in full - https://londontobaccoalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Vaping-Position-Statement-for-London.pdf
Photo Credit:
Photo by Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash
LTA logo from https://twitter.com/LTA_London
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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