E-cigarettes in Scotland

UK - Scotland: Glasgow City Council yesterday responded to the ongoing Scottish government review of the environmental impact of disposable e-cigarettes by calling for a ban on all disposables. The council said Glasgow’s Trading Standards regularly visit shops and warehouses to check businesses are complying with regulations and advise retailers on their responsibilities and that 13,000 non-compliant single-use vapes were seized in three months. In 2022, 63 such inspections were made, with seizures of non-compliant goods made from 51 stores. A cross-party bill to ban the sale of disposables was submitted to the UK Parliament last month.

UK - Scotland: The Scottish government has commissioned an urgent evidence review on the environmental impact of disposable e-cigarettes, which could lead to a ban. Other approaches to be considered may include increasing access to responsible disposal options, improved product design, or public communications campaigns. Circular economy minister Lorna Slater said: “Not only are single-use vapes bad for public health, they are also bad for the environment.” The review will influence the new tobacco action plan, which is due in the autumn.

UK - Scotland: Commenting on a call by an environmental campaigner for a ban on disposable e-cigarettes, an official spokesperson told reporters: “The Scottish government is considering the emerging issues around single-use disposable vapes, and in the meantime it must be remembered that these devices are electronic equipment and should always be disposed of responsibly.”

UK - Scotland: The Scottish government published a report yesterday on the findings from the consultation on proposed restrictions on e-cigarette advertising . A total of 757 responses were submitted, mostly by individuals. The respondents were nearly equally divided on all issues: 51.5% opposed further restrictions on advertising, while 50.7% agreed that the use of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool should be limited and that exposure to them by non-smokers should be restricted.

UK (Scotland): Trading Standards officers found a wide range of non-compliant single-use or disposable vaping devices on sale in Scotland between October and December 2021, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) reports. Following inspections, a total of 88,839 disposable devices were removed from sale as they were either not labelled correctly, did not contain sufficient classification, labelling and packaging (CLP) regulation information or had not been published by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Another 3,683 devices were seized as they had a capacity of over the legal limit of 2 ml.