“Seven community pharmacies across Medway are participating in a pilot to include vaping (e-cigarettes) as a treatment option within their locally commissioned stop-smoking service,” Community Pharmacy England (CPE) this week (November 13) announced.
“Smoking cessation advisors will provide eligible patients with a voucher for a starter kit and a supply of up to four weeks’ worth of vape liquid”, it said.
Read more: ‘Absolutely not!’: Strong opposition to offering vapes in pharmacies, shows poll
Patients will then be able to obtain e-cigarettes “using a voucher code system from a provider selected by the Medway public health team”, it added.
“Smoking cessation clients will be entitled to six nicotine replacement therapy products,” it said.
But it stressed that the pilot service “only recommends vaping in the short term as a quit aid”.
“Essential” to meet government targets
“The pilot is in response to the government’s ambition for England to be smokefree by 2030” and follows local analysis that “to achieve this, 50% of smokers will need to undertake a quit attempt every year”, according to CPE.
Chief officer of Kent Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC) Mark Anyaegbuna said that “to accelerate smoking reduction in Medway and meet government targets, an integrated strategy involving vaping as a safer alternative is essential”.
Read more: Welsh MP: Vapes should only be available as quit tool from pharmacies
“This approach not only targets smoking reduction but also addresses health and economic inequalities,” he added.
He stressed that community pharmacies could play “a crucial role in supporting these efforts”.
“Stop-smoking” pill
It comes as NHS England (NHSE) this week (November 12) announced that it is set to offer a “stop-smoking” pill “to tens of thousands of smokers each year in England to provide another option to help them quit”.
It said that the “game-changer” pill “has been shown to work as well as vapes to help people stop smoking and be a more effective aid than nicotine-replacement gum or patches”.
Read more: Stop smoking: 10% rise in people seeking to quit in pharmacies
The daily pill, called Varenicline, “works by reducing cravings for nicotine and blocking its effect on the brain, while also helping with withdrawal symptoms such as feeling irritable or having difficulty sleeping”, it added.
“Alongside supporting the government’s ambition to create the first smoke-free generation, we are giving current smokers the tools they need to quit,” NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said.
Vape vendetta?
The government last month laid new legislation in parliament “to ban the sale of single-use vapes from June 1 2025”.
And last November, a C+D poll of over 600 respondents found strong opposition to offering vapes in pharmacies.
Read more: Superdrug quits disposable vape market over environmental concerns
It found that almost three-quarters (74%) of respondents thought that “pharmacies shouldn’t offer” vapes at all.
Meanwhile, only 8% of respondents thought that vapes should “only” be available in pharmacies through a prescription.
