“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come” – WH Auden
The government has finally announced a ban on disposable vapes, after teasing the measure last September. Back then, when I was still a Lost Mary head, I saw the proposed ban as an example of government overreach so sinister and tyrannical that I was considering signing up to the Libertarian Party or launching an underground militia to fight for vapers’ rights. But now that I’m two weeks into quitting, I can see the ban for what it is: a heroic intervention from Comrade Sunak and a righteous blow against predatory capitalism. If I can no longer enjoy the crisp, tart mouthfeel of a ‘Double Apple’ Lost Mary or the effervescent tang of a ‘Pink Lemonade’ Elf Bar, then why the hell should anyone else?
Still, I feel a sense of grief now that it’s finally over. I will miss sitting down with a book and puffing away for hours, as content as a baby with a binky. For years, my vape was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night, when it sent me to sleep with a gentle lover’s kiss. It accompanied me everywhere: the bath, the cinema, my desk at work, train toilets – and even, in one panicked, furtive moment, the seat of a plane. I will always owe vaping a debt of gratitude for helping me to quit smoking, even if it only replaced one addiction with another.
But this obsession exacted a cost, both financial and physical. After a while I was spending a disgusting amount of money and my lungs were beginning to protest: while the effects are nowhere near as bad as smoking, it turns out that inhaling a cocktail of flavoured chemicals with every second breath isn’t that great for your body. It also became harder to ignore the sense that there was a contradiction between claiming to care about the environment and throwing away several lithium batteries a week. Lithium is a finite material (once it’s gone, it’s gone), which is necessary for electric transport and renewable energy. I would struggle to justify to future generations that my enjoyment of a ‘Peach Ice’ Elf Bar was a good use of this vital resource.
As much as it pains me to give any credit to a Tory government, I think, on balance, it has made the right decision. On the one hand, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that vaping can be an important tool for harm reduction – it really is immeasurably better for you than smoking, and if it’s a choice between one or the other, the choice is clear-cut. But for lots of young people, vaping has become a gateway to an expensive and often life-long addiction. Maybe if disposables are out of the picture, they’ll just go straight to cigarettes, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen on a mass scale. Vaping still exists as an option, as it should, and there are plenty of alternatives available. Having liberated myself from vaping, I have now fallen under the spell of those little nicotine pouches. What is addiction if not pleasure, persevering?