This is going to be quite a celebratory article to cover for many vapers out there in the fight against smoking with the government actually making substantial progress in their goal of achieving a smoke free England by the year 2030. There were some initial plans put in place with a road map of goals back in July 2017 when they released information on the GOV website including a complete PDF file of information regarding their progress towards a smokefree generation with a tobacco control plan for the public to read through as they pleased with some interesting targets labelled in place. These targets included Prevention first, Supporting smokers to quit, Eliminating variation in smoking rates and lastly Effective Enforcement with a goal to achieve all objectives in place by the end of 2022. Fast forward to April 2023, The GOV website uploads a press release to their website detailing an interesting new initiative being put in place called "Swap To Stop", Which is set to bring in some pretty interesting advantages to those looking at binning those cigarettes.
More on the "Swap To Stop" Scheme
The Government themselves are helping the NHS to launch this brand new smokefree campaign to help encourage ALL 5.3 million smokers here in England to bin the cigarettes from January 2024 onwards with a video campaign even being released from the NHS featuring professional incites into the damage of smoking for not only yourself but to "quit for the kids" with even the England Football Teams Ex-Goalkeeper David James being involved in the video campaign with his story. This scheme will cost roughly £45 Million in funding with the Department Of Health And Social Care's budget with vaping being actively pushed as the safer alternative by offering smokers a free [starter kit] and/or vouchers towards grabbing one with a choice of products in different strengths and flavours for the participant. In order for this to work with greater success rates, Smokers who join the scheme must commit to quitting smoking with expert support through local authority led stop smoking services. It has been stated that in a 2021 study program that smokers who quit using vaping with included in-person support are twice as likely to stop smoking, So the addition of needing to do so as part of the scheme really does make sense in my opinion.
There are more details yet to be confirmed about the world-first swap to stop scheme and how to qualify but as an initial prospect that this is happening in the first place with the Government now supporting vaping as a smoking cessation tool is incredible news as well as a massive step in the right direction. This entire topic is being covered from multiple sources including articles from the likes of the BBC which is all helping towards spreading awareness and there are already local authorities nationwide requesting a staggering 259,000 vapes! This has been so loosely followed in the past but now its being pushed fully into getting the UK smoke free by 2030, It can only be onwards and upwards from here and I myself am looking forward to seeing how this progresses and will update you as and when I can with any updates!
For more information as well as some of the many benefits of quitting smoking using a vape, Check this vaping to quit smoking information page by the NHS themselves for all there is to know on the matter. You can also check out some of the best starter kits for those wanting to quit smoking with our blog that covers the question that is "What are the best starter kits to quit smoking?" right here by following the link.
