Dutch consultation On Vape Flavors Ends On September 28

People who vape and people who support vaping have less than a week to take part in the Dutch government's short public consultation on a ban on flavoring vape products, which is likely to put most manufacturers out of business next year. The last day to give feedback is September 28.

The new law will ban all vape flavors except for tobacco. It will go into effect on January 1, 2023, but products that are already on the market as of December 31 can still be sold until July 1, 2023. The law bans flavors in both nicotine-containing and nicotine-free e-liquids. It also applies to both prefilled and bottled e-liquids.

In June, the Swedish parliament voted against a bill that would have made it illegal to add flavors to vapes. Except for the Netherlands, six European countries have banned flavors not made from tobacco. There are already restrictions on flavored vapes in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, and Lithuania. In July 2023, flavored vapes will also be banned in Ukraine. There is no country in Europe that has a blanket ban on all vape products.

The new list of ingredients that can be used in vapes is a sneaky way to ban them all.

The consultation is a chance to give feedback on a new change to the country's Tobacco and Smoking Products Order that goes further than the flavor restrictions that have already been announced. The Dutch National Institute of Public Health and Environment (RIVM) and the Ministry of Health have come up with a list of only 16 ingredients that would be allowed in legal tobacco-flavored e-liquids.

But manufacturers say that the small number of allowed ingredients would make it impossible to make new flavors, like tobacco flavors.

Advocates of vaping in the Netherlands say that the restrictions on ingredients will basically put all e-liquid makers in the Netherlands out of business because they would have to throw out their current products and wouldn't be able to make tobacco flavors using the new list of flavorings that are allowed.

Background with a Dutch taste

In June 2020, Paul Blokhuis, who was the health minister of the Netherlands at the time, told the Tweede Kamer, which is the Dutch house of representatives, that the government would soon pass a law that would ban vape products with flavors other than tobacco.

Blokhuis's proposed ban on flavors was based on a study by the Trimbos Institute that was paid for by the government. The study used cherry-picked science to support its claim that flavored vape products attract teens. The study also said that "there is growing evidence that e-cigarettes are a gateway to tobacco cigarettes," even though there is no "gateway effect" evidence from the real world.

In December 2020, the government held a public consultation. They got a record number of comments, and almost all of them were against the law. Vaping advocates also gave the government a petition signed by 19,000 people who were against the restrictions.

In May 2021, the Dutch Council of Ministers, which was the government at the time, voted to ban flavors. This was done despite strong opposition from vapers and the independent vaping industry, which was led by the Dutch consumer group Acvoda and the industry group Esigbond.

On July 1, 2022, the law was supposed to go into effect. Then, in March 2022, Esigbond told the government that some of the ingredients on the original list of RIVM-approved ingredients were known to cause cancer. Because of this, the Dutch cabinet put the law off until 2023 when it changed the list.

Now, the Dutch government will have to ignore the second round of opposition from vapers in the Netherlands and across Europe in order to carry out its harsh response to teens trying new things.