The new Swiss legislation on vaping - October 1, 2024

Switzerland’s new vaping legislation, embodied by the LTab and LPtab laws, has been widely criticized by industry professionals and some public health experts. These laws impose a significant tax on nicotine e-liquids, increasing their cost by almost 30%, while keeping taxes on traditional cigarettes unchanged. Bottles of nicotine-containing liquids are now limited to 10 ml, with a maximum concentration of 20 mg/ml, and are taxed at 20 cents per milliliter. Disposable e-cigarettes, on the other hand, are taxed at 1 franc per milliliter.

Vape shops are no longer allowed to mix nicotine base into e-liquids for customers, although this restriction is not explicitly mentioned in the law. This ban is said to stem from strict labeling requirements, which make it virtually impossible to customize blends in-store. This now forces consumers to make their own blends, further complicating the use of vaping products.

Some experts, such as Camille Robert of the Groupe romand d'études des addictions (GREA), consider these measures to be counterproductive in terms of public health. If the introduction of the tax on vaping could be justified, it would have been logical to also increase taxes on cigarettes to maintain an attractive price gap in favor of vaping. The fact that tobacco prices have remained unchanged suggests a decision in favor of maintaining the appeal of traditional cigarettes.

This disparity in taxation fuels speculation about possible influence from the tobacco lobby. By making vaping less attractive and more expensive, this legislation appears to indirectly support sales of traditional cigarettes, which directly benefits the interests of big tobacco companies. This raises questions about the real motivations behind these decisions and suggests that these laws may well have been influenced by pressure from the tobacco industry to protect their market share, to the detriment of public health risk reduction initiatives.

Source: RTS (Article here )