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About the campaign

About Save Vaping

Save Vaping is a campaign organised by the New Nicotine Alliance to oppose disproportionate restrictions in the current tobacco and vapes packaging, appearance, and display consultation, and to help supporters respond clearly through the consultation and their MP.

Write to your MP

Save Vaping is a campaign organised by the New Nicotine Alliance to oppose disproportionate restrictions in the UK government’s consultation on tobacco and vapes packaging, appearance, and retail display.

At its simplest, the campaign is making one argument: public policy on vaping, heated tobacco, and other nicotine products should protect young people without undermining evidence-led harm reduction for adults.

What we are opposing

The current consultation covers UK-wide proposals on packaging, product and device appearance, flavour descriptors, and retail display for tobacco, vaping, heated tobacco, and nicotine products.

Those proposals could affect adults who vape or use other reduced-risk alternatives, smokers who may be thinking of switching, and the retailers who provide legal products and practical advice. Save Vaping opposes restrictions that go further than needed, make reduced-risk products harder for adults to understand, or blur the difference between smoking and alternatives that can help adults move away from combustible tobacco.

Why we oppose disproportionate restrictions

Save Vaping is making four linked arguments.

  • Harm reduction must stay visible because smokers need clear signals that switching away from combustible tobacco matters.
  • Adult choice matters because adults should be able to identify legal alternatives and understand how products differ before they switch.
  • Retail impact matters because specialist retailers and other lawful businesses will carry the practical burden of new packaging, appearance, and display rules.
  • Youth protection must be proportionate because protecting young people should not mean punishing adults who use reduced-risk products.

What the campaign wants people to do

The current phase of the campaign is focused on two actions:

  • respond to the public consultation before it closes at 11:59pm on 2 October 2026
  • write to your MP using the example text as a starting point and ask them to oppose disproportionate restrictions

That combination matters. Consultation responses help create a formal record of opposition. MP contact helps show that the issue has a constituency-level political cost.

What experts say

These approved statements give wider harm-reduction context for why policy should distinguish smoking from reduced-risk alternatives.

"International peer-reviewed evidence indicates that the risk to the health of bystanders from exposure to e-cigarette vapour is extremely low."

Public Health England, Use of e-cigarettes in public places and workplaces (2016)

"e-cigarette use is not covered by smokefree legislation and should not routinely be included in the requirements of an organisation's smokefree policy."

Public Health England, Use of e-cigarettes in public places and workplaces (2016)

"Distinguish between smoking and vaping: Conflating vaping with smoking is harmful to health."

Martin Dockrell, Tobacco Control Lead, Public Health England

"It is very important that smokefree legislation does not include vaping. Vaping is a harm reduction approach for adult smokers trying to quit smoking. Policies that deal with smoking and vaping in the same way send a very confusing message."

Professor Caitlin Notley, Professor of Addiction Sciences, Lifespan Health Research Centre, University of East Anglia

"Helping people switch from smoking to vaping should be considered a priority if the Government is to achieve a smoke-free 2030 in England."

Dr Debbie Robson, Senior Lecturer in Tobacco Harm Reduction, King's IoPPN, King's College London

"While health risks of e-cigarettes to vapers themselves have been estimated at up to 5% of health risks of smoking, health risks to bystanders are most likely reduced by a much bigger margin, and most likely altogether. This is because e-cigarettes release no chemicals into the environment themselves, only what users exhale, and such exhalation has so far not been shown to generate any toxicants at levels that could conceivably affect the health of bystanders."

Professor Peter Hajek, Director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit, Queen Mary University of London

"perceiving vaping as equally or more harmful than smoking predicted subsequent relapse to smoking among adult former smokers"

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence update

"our findings that vaping carries a small fraction of the health risks of smoking, suggest that smokers should be encouraged to use vaping products for stopping smoking"

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence update