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Gold BarEnough Is Enough: It's Time to Question the Double Standard
Stephanos Philippou
9 Minute Read
Enough Is Enough: It's Time to Question the Double Standard
Why are we making it harder for adults to access alternatives to smoking while alcohol continues to enjoy freedoms that vaping businesses are being stripped of?
Walk into a supermarket, and you'll find shelves filled with brightly coloured alcohol bottles, creative flavour combinations and eye-catching branding.
Walk into a specialist vape retailer, and you'll find an industry facing increasingly restrictive rules on packaging, product presentation, advertising and taxation.
One industry sells a product that is directly linked to cancer and thousands of preventable deaths. The other provides an alternative that the NHS recognises as substantially less harmful than smoking and an effective tool for helping adults quit cigarettes.
Yet it is the vaping industry that increasingly finds itself treated as though it has no legitimate role in public health.
How have we reached a point where a recognised smoking cessation tool faces tighter restrictions while alcohol continues to be marketed so visibly?
Protecting children is essential. Nobody should dispute that.
But protecting children should not mean overlooking the millions of adults who smoke, have quit smoking or are trying to quit.
It's time to question whether the balance is right.
One Is a Recognised Stop-Smoking Tool. The Other Is Alcohol.
Before discussing packaging, advertising or taxation, we need to establish something fundamental.
Smoking is one of the leading preventable causes of cancer.
According to Cancer Research UK, tobacco smoking is responsible for a significant proportion of cancer cases, with the chemicals in tobacco smoke damaging DNA and increasing the risk of disease.
Its research into how smoking causes cancer explains how harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke damage cells and interfere with the body's ability to repair that damage.
Nicotine is addictive, but it is important to distinguish nicotine from the toxic chemicals produced when tobacco burns.
The NHS makes that distinction clear.
In its guidance on vaping myths and facts, the NHS states:
"Nicotine itself does not cause cancer, lung disease, heart disease or stroke."
The NHS also explains that vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking, although it is not completely risk-free.
That distinction matters enormously.
Vaping allows adults who smoke to obtain nicotine without inhaling the tar and carbon monoxide produced by burning tobacco. It has become an established tool for helping people move away from cigarettes.
Now consider alcohol.
Cancer Research UK confirms that alcohol causes seven types of cancer, including cancers of the mouth, throat, breast, bowel and liver.
When the body processes alcohol, it produces acetaldehyde, a toxic chemical that can damage DNA and contribute to cancer development.
The risks associated with alcohol are not simply a matter of opinion. They are established by the same respected health organisations that inform national public health policy.
This is not an argument for banning alcohol.
It is an argument for consistency.
If the evidence matters when regulating vaping, surely the evidence should matter when considering the freedoms afforded to alcohol too.
Bright Bottles, Creative Flavours and Colourful Packaging, But Only for Alcohol?
Imagine two products displayed in a shop.
The first is a brightly coloured bottle of fruit-flavoured alcoholic drink, complete with attractive branding and a flavour description designed to make it stand out.
The second is a fruit-flavoured vaping product intended for an adult smoker who has switched away from cigarettes.
Both products are legally restricted to adults.
Yet the approach to how these products can be packaged, displayed and marketed is dramatically different.
Alcohol brands continue to use colourful packaging, distinctive flavour names, lifestyle imagery and highly recognisable branding.
Alcohol products can be found on supermarket shelves alongside snacks, confectionery and other everyday purchases. Their visibility can extend to prominent promotional stands, entrance displays and large, colourful signs directing shoppers towards them.
Meanwhile, vaping businesses already face extensive advertising restrictions. Under CAP rule 22.5, marketing communications cannot claim that a vaping product helps people stop smoking unless that product is authorised for that purpose by the MHRA. This restricts how businesses can communicate with adult smokers, even when smoking cessation is the intended subject of the message. We recognise why controls on youth appeal matter. Concerns about youth vaping are legitimate, and products should never be designed or marketed to appeal to children. But protecting children and allowing responsible communication with existing adult smokers should be compatible goals. The question is whether restrictions strike that balance and why alcohol continues to receive such prominent retail exposure.
But we should also ask whether removing useful product information, restricting branding and limiting visibility for legitimate adult consumers is always the most proportionate response.
Flavours are not exclusively attractiveto children.
Adults enjoy fruit-flavoured drinks, sweets, desserts and alcohol. Flavours are more than a preference for adults who vape. For many, they are a key part of moving away from cigarettes, offering an experience distinct from tobacco that helps them maintain that change.
The question should be whether a product is being deliberately targeted at children, not simply whether it has a flavour.
There is also a fundamental difference between responsible specialist retailers serving adults and businesses deliberately breaking age-restriction laws.
Why should compliant adult-only retailers face the consequences of behaviour they are already working to prevent?
A New Tax on People Who Have Already Quit Smoking
From 1 October 2026, the UK is introducing Vaping Products Duty.
The duty is set at £2.20 per 10ml of vaping liquid, before the additional VAT effect on thefinal selling price.
Where the full duty and 20% VAT are passed through to the consumer, that represents approximately £2.64 extra per 10ml.
It applies regardless of whether a liquid contains nicotine, meaning this includes zero-nicotine products.
For an adult who has switched from smoking to vaping, that is a significant additional cost.
For someone currently smoking who is considering switching, it creates another financial consideration.
We understand the purpose of taxation in public health policy. Governments regularly use taxes to discourage harmful consumption.
But there is an important question here.
Should a product used to move away from smoking be gated, or should we be building bridges?
Consider an adult who smoked for twenty years, successfully moved away from tobacco and now uses a refillable vaping device.
They have made a change that reduces their exposure to many of the harmful chemicals found in cigarette smoke.
Yet they now face higher costs for the alternative that helped them make that change.
For people on lower incomes, affordability matters.
Alcohol Change UK’s research into alcohol and inequalities highlights the relationship between social disadvantage and alcohol-related harm. Vaping policy also needs careful consideration of its unequal financial impacts.
A tax intended to discourage youth vaping must also be assessed for its consequences for adults who would otherwise smoke. If regulated vaping products become less affordable, some may be discouraged from switching, while others, particularly those under financial pressure, may turn to a cheaper black-market supplier.
That creates a further concern. Pushing purchases towards sellers who disregard the rules can undermine the protections regulation is intended to provide. Products bought through illicit channels may have dangerous ingredients, inaccurate nicotine labels or inadequate safety checks.
These potential unintended consequences deserve serious scrutiny. Taxation should be evaluated not only by the revenue it generates, but by whether it supports public health or creates greater incentives for an unregulated market.
Pubs Get Support. Vape Shops Lose It.
There is another contrast that deserves attention: how different sectors are treated by government economic policy.
Pubs and hospitality businesses have received targeted business rates support, reflecting their economic importance and the pressures they face.
We do not oppose supporting pubs.
They employ people, contribute to communities and face genuine financial challenges.
But so do independent specialist vape retailers.
Across the UK, legitimate vaping retailers employ staff, pay business rates, maintain high-street premises, serve adults seeking alternatives to cigarettes and by providing a product promoted by the NHS as a safer smoking alternative, save the NHS and social care system money.
These businesses are also being asked to adapt to additional regulatory requirements, tighter marketing restrictions and a new duty system.
Yet the public health role of responsible specialist vape retailers often appears to receive far less recognition.
That is difficult to reconcile with the NHS's position on vaping as a smoking cessation tool.
We should be encouraging responsible businesses to provide accurate information, verify customers' ages and help adults understand the products they use.
Instead, the combined pressures of regulation, taxation and operating costs risk making it harder for some of these businesses to remain viable.
If the government can recognise the value of protecting pubs as community businesses, why should it overlook the role of legitimate specialist vape retailers in supporting adults who have stopped smoking?
Calls for a retail licensing scheme offer a constructive way forward: stronger accountability for sellers, effective enforcement against rogue traders, and a clearer distinction between responsible businesses and those breaking the rules.
This is not about taking support away from hospitality.
It is about asking for fair consideration across sectors.
Protect Children. Support Adults. Regulate Fairly.
This debate should never become a choice between protecting children and supporting adult smokers.
We can do both.
We can enforce strict age restrictions, tackle illegal products, prevent irresponsible marketing and ensure that children are protected from nicotine.
At the same time, we can recognise the government’s own evidence. Its 2022 review concluded that, in the short and medium term, vaping poses “a small fraction of the risks of smoking”. That finding deserves a clear place in public discussion, alongside the acknowledgement that vaping is not risk-free. GOV.UK
Protecting young people also means keeping cigarette smoking firmly in view. ASH’s 2026 survey found that 52% of current smokers aged 11–17 also vaped. This overlap does not prove that vaping caused smoking or helped these young people quit, but it underlines why youth smoking must remain part of the policy response. ASH
We can acknowledge the proven harms of alcohol without demanding that pubs or alcohol producers be shut down. And we can ask whether vaping regulation is proportionate: protecting children while preserving a less harmful alternative for adults who would otherwise smoke.
The NHS, Cancer Research UK and other respected public health organisations provide important evidence about the risks of smoking, vaping and alcohol.
That evidence should guide policy, rather than being selectively applied.
As a business operating within the UK vaping industry, we support responsible regulation, proper enforcement and protecting young people.
But we also believe that adults who have stopped smoking, those who are trying to quit and the legitimate businesses serving them deserve to be heard.
Enough is enough.
At VapeHQ we support the UK’s Tobacco and Related Products Regulations (TRPR) and the product standards they establish. We also support a retail licensing scheme that makes sellers identifiable and accountable, with effective enforcement and swift action against those who break the rules.
Protecting children means tackling illegal sales and the black market. It also means considering all the evidence, including the overlap between youth vaping and youth smoking. We should not assume every young person who vapes previously smoked, or buys from an illegal supplier. But we cannot address underage access without confronting the sellers supplying them.
Responsible businesses should be part of that solution.
Fair regulation must recognise the difference between smoking and vaping, between responsible retailers and illegal sellers, and between protecting children and creating unnecessary barriers for adults trying to move away from cigarettes.
Protect children. Support adults. Enforce standards. Regulate fairly.
That should not be a controversial position. It should be the foundation of sensible public health policy.
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