Yesterday, March 30, the Tholos Foundation formally submitted comments to the Slovenian Ministry of Health regarding the proposed regulation within the Ministry to ban all flavors in vape products, except for tobacco flavor. Tholos’ submission offered evidence illustrating the importance of flavored vape products to adults who currently smoke or use flavored vape products to stay off of deadly cigarettes.
“Our submission makes clear that flavored vaping products are crucial for adult smoking cessation,” said Tim Andrews, Tholos’ Director of Consumer Issues who authored the submission. “Vaping products are shown to be 95% less harmful than traditional cigarettes and are considered far more effective than any other form of nicotine replacement therapy. Flavored products are even more effective, helping those who smoke quit at rates two to three times higher than those using unflavored products.”
“This proposal will cause far-reaching damage to public health in Slovenia. Without legal access to flavored products, more Slovenians will smoke cigarettes and there will be far higher rates of smoking-related disease and death as a result. This is quite literally a life-or-death issue.”
“Polling from IPSOS Research, commissioned by the Tholos Foundation, also indicates that flavor bans are often highly ineffective, and our submission shared these findings with Slovenia’s Health Ministry. In Estonia, 58% of vapers still use illicit flavors more than a year after the country passed a flavor ban. Many of these consumers have been pushed into the illicit market to find the products they rely on to stay smoke-free. The illicit vapor market is largely run by international crime syndicates who use their smuggling profits to fund more nefarious activities like human trafficking, money laundering, and terrorism. The U.S. State Department has gone so far as to call tobacco smuggling a “threat to national security”. The importance of keeping these criminal cartels out of Estonia cannot be understated.”
Tholos’ full submission can be read here.