Welsh MP: Vapes should only be available as quit tool from pharmacies
Welsh member of Senedd (MS) John Griffiths has suggested that vapes should only be available on prescription at pharmacies.
Mr Griffiths, Labour MS for Newport East, made the comments during a debate about the impact of vaping across Wales held last week (October 11) in the Senedd.
Making vapes “only available at pharmacies by prescription as a smoking cessation tool” could be a way to reduce the negative impact of vaping, he said.
He added that only permitting the use of vapes on prescription through pharmacies was a “possible compromise” between banning vapes altogether and utilising them to help people with “cutting down or giving up cigarettes”.
Highlighting the impact of how vapes are currently marketed “particularly to children and young people”, Mr Griffiths said that there is “clearly…a need for much stronger regulation to end these unscrupulous and deeply harmful practices”.
“There are different views on the best way forward and a lively and developing debate, but we definitely do need urgent Welsh government action to protect our young people and people of all ages from the harms of vaping and e-cigarettes,” he added.
Pharmacies to join “specialist” smoking cessation teams?
The suggestion came a day before the UK government launched a consultation into its plans to create a “smokefree generation” and to “crack down on youth vaping”, which is set to close on December 6.
The government plan “to create a smokefree generation”, published on the same day (October 12), involves using “a core specialist team of advisors” and trained professionals such as “pharmacy staff” to “engage with specific smoking populations that typically do not access” smoking cessation services.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DH) told C+D that local funding decisions would outline how these teams would work in practice.
Last month, think tanks the King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust released their “vision” for community pharmacy, which recommended that pharmacies provide smoking cessation advice and support for vapes as well as tobacco products.
