It’s a difficult balance to strike – reducing the appeal of vapes to young people while acknowledging their role in helping adult smokers to quit.
An answer for an increasing number of countries has been to ban all vape flavours except tobacco and sometimes menthol and/or mint.
However, evidence is mounting to show that banning fruit and sweet flavours greatly reduces the number of smokers who are able to successfully kick the deadly habit.
A new study, published in international journal Addictive Behaviours, found that smokers in the U.S. who chose tobacco-flavoured vapes were far less likely to switch to vapes or reduce smoking than those who chose any other flavours.
It said: “Results suggest that non-tobacco e-cigarette flavours may be more appealing than tobacco flavours, and better promote uptake of e-cigarettes and cigarette smoking reduction.”
In the clinical trial, a free four-week supply of vapes was given to a randomised group of 427 adult smokers who smoked an average of 14.8 cigarettes per day.
Participants were asked to choose from five flavour options: tobacco, menthol, blue/blackberry, apple melon, and iced fruit. They could choose up to two flavours for each of two, two-week supplies of vapes.
Tobacco the least popular choice
Tobacco flavour was by far the least popular option, chosen by only five per cent of participants.
Those who picked tobacco flavour had a far lower uptake of vaping (55 per cent) at the end of the four-week trial compared to those who chose any other flavour combination (74 per cent).
They were less likely to reduce smoking by at least 50 per cent at the end of the trial (14 per cent compared to 34 per cent) and at the final six month follow up (five per cent compared to 29 per cent).
And they were less likely to have given up cigarettes completely at the end of the trial (five per cent compared to 11 per cent) and the final six month follow-up (five per cent compared to 14 per cent).
Countries increasingly restricting vapes and flavours
Currently, more than 30 countries have completely banned the sale of any kind of vapes. Others, including Finland, Hungary, Netherlands, Ukraine, Lithuania, China, and Latvia, allow only tobacco-flavoured vapes.
A small number, including Denmark, Estonia and Slovenia, allow tobacco and menthol and some, including Canada and the U.S, have regional restrictions in place.
In the U.S, the Food and Drug Administration has denied marketing orders to vapes with flavours other than tobacco. It has also allowed only a handful of menthol-flavoured vapes.
Australia allows the sale of tobacco, mint and menthol vapes only from pharmacies. All other flavours are banned.
Source: Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada
The authors of the latest study concluded that more research is urgently needed to better inform governments about the impact of flavour bans.
The report said: “The impact of e-cigarette flavouring on e-cigarette uptake and switching to e-cigarettes among adults who smoke is critical to e-cigarette regulation in the United States.”
It added: “Large-scale randomised trials in which participants are assigned to either tobacco or non-tobacco flavours are critical.”
Fruit-flavoured pouches more effective than mint
The findings come after a separate study found fruit flavoured nicotine pouches are significantly more effective than mint at helping people to quit smoking.
The research, published in the journal BMC Health, showed that a higher proportion of smokers who used fruit or other flavoured pouches had quit cigarettes after six months (15.4 per cent) compared to those who used mint flavoured pouches (11.6 per cent).
Mint, it said, was as effective as other flavours at helping people to reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke – but not when it came to successfully quitting.Meanwhile a poll in the UK – which is considering flavour restrictions on top of an upcoming disposables ban – found a worrying 41 per cent of adult vapers (2.3 million people) would switch back to smoking if disposable vapes and their preferred flavours were made illegal.
