Smokers could be offered vapes in Peterborough under new trial

July 6, 2023

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Smokers could be offered vapes to help them quit cigarettes as part of a trial being proposed in Peterborough.

According to local reports, the one-year pilot program would see smokers being given vapes as part of a structured attempt to give up smoking in order to test whether it helps improve success rates. The report recommending the trial produced by Peterborough City Council (PCC) and the region’s Integrated Care Board (ICB) says that vapes, which contain nicotine but not tar or tobacco, are “probably less harmful than cigarettes”.

There is “robust short- and medium-term evidence” that people who vape are exposed to fewer harmful substances than people who smoke, it continues, while acknowledging the “relatively short timeframe for any evidence about their long-term use”.

Vapes contain toxins and carcinogens, it adds, but at lower levels than cigarettes, and have been shown to be effective in helping people give up smoking.

PCC and the ICB propose in the report that, alongside local authorities in Cambridgeshire, they should apply for funding for the pilot from central government when it becomes available under its “swap to stop” initiative, highlighting in their application the “very high rates [of smoking] in Fenland along with high numbers of homeless in Cambridge City and Peterborough”.

PCC and the ICB also propose to expand the region’s school-based programmes that address smoking and vaping among teens – which is becoming more prevalent.

Across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, nine per cent of 11 to 17 year-olds say they’ve tried smoking, while the figure for vaping is 21 per cent.

The authorities’ report also suggests increasing spot checks on shops selling vapes and cigarettes in order to crack down on those that sell the products to young people and those whose products don’t meet minimum safety requirements.

Last year, just nine shops in Peterborough were checked by the council’s trading standards service, the report says, with faults being found at four of them.

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