And set the murderous Machiavel to school

Few people have their names turned into words. No doubt Thomas Bowdler had no such intent when he published his expurgated “Family Shakespeare.” Captain Charles Boycott, ostracized by the Irish tenants of the lord he acted for, never anticipated his enduring fame, any more than did Vidkun Quisling when he served as Nazi puppet Prime Minister of occupied Norway. The top title of them all, however, surely goes to Niccolo Machiavelli, born 550 years ago on May 3rd, 1469.

He was active in the politics of the Italian city states of his day, in the world of de Medicis and Borgias. He served as Secretary to the Chancery of his native Florence and undertook diplomatic missions. While he wrote poems, songs and comedies, he is best remembered for “The Prince,” a work of political analysis set in the form of a letter to Lorenzo de Medici. What made the work infamous was its brutal realism. Machiavelli broke with the tradition of describing how wise and just leaders should behave, and wrote instead about what princes actually do.

Machiavelli wrote that governance is about seizing and holding power, and doing whatever it takes to do so successfully. It is important, he said, to be ruthless. When a prince needs to act cruelly in order to inspire fear, he should do so quickly and decisively.  Benefits, on the other hand, should be eked out slowly so their goodwill lasts longer.

Duplicity is important because people see only the appearances, and are fooled by them.  Rulers have to be brutal, even evil, he advises, because force is successful, whereas virtue is not; but the ruler should feign virtue to avoid incurring hatred. Sometimes, he advises, a prince has to murder opponents, especially if they are of a family that previously ruled.

His stark insights into power have made his name endure as a catchword for devious duplicity and double dealing. This overlooks his originality. He saw past the honeyed words and understood that government is about power, the power to make people live as you tell them to live rather than as they might want to live.

Many leaders since Machiavelli have realized that a monopoly of armed force can be used for the brutal suppression of dissent. Lenin, Stalin and Mao knew that, as did Castro and Chavez, and more recently Maduro. It helps if, like Machiavelli’s prince, you pretend to be virtuous, and proclaim it is all done in the name of the people. “Brotherhood of mankind” and “rule by the workers” have proved effective cloaks to hoodwink people into supposing virtue when the cold reality has always been about maintaining the naked power of the ruler and his clique.

The only antidote has been the separation of powers so that some elements of it can restrain its use by others. Even this, though, knows no final victory, only a constant ongoing tension between them. Machiavelli saw what rulers were like, and had the nerve to speak the truth about them.

The role of the state in AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already changed our way of life, from predictive and transactional algorithms to improved healthcare treatments. Since AI will continue to change our lives, it’s worth our time to consider historical precedent. What role should the government play in times of rapid social change?

In 1933 Congress (USA) passed the ‘American Agricultural Act’, encouraging the destruction of crops and livestock: 6.4 million piglets were slaughtered [1]. This was done to combat “overproduction” [2]! The East India Company was granted a monopoly in 1600 [3]. We are all aware of the mercantile nature of the British Empire, a tax exemption would have been sufficient to encourage British trade in India. Admittedly two different examples aren’t conclusive but brevity insists I cherry pick. I can’t help but notice a trend in the effects of government intervention.

The Chinese and American governments are pouring resources into AI research, and no wonder when AI will likely define the world’s next superpower. However, we are being presented with an implied choice, a false choice, between government research and no research. The government cannot research AI, it can only take resources and talent out of the private sector. This isn’t the first time governments have heavily invested in AI research. The Japanese government funded the ‘Fifth Generation Computer Systems 1982’, losing out to competition, despite gargantuan funding [4].

Imagine if governments kept drills from us, in order to save construction jobs. It’s dangerous to let the government pick winners in markets, the consumer should be sufficient. If we wish to avoid problems with AI, we’re going to need to outsource problem-solving to as many people as possible, not to civil servants.

AI will allow the workforce to shift away from repetitive work toward creative work. Nail salons and genetic counselling didn’t exist decades ago, in the 19th century dead horse removal was a massive industry in cities [5].  Perhaps essay writing will become a common livelihood!

---

[1] Livestock Under the AAA, The Brookings Institution, 1935

[2] Hurt, R. Douglas, Problems of Plenty: The American Farmer in the Twentieth Century, (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002), 68

[3] Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World, page 18

[4] Andrew Pollack, “Fifth Generation” Became Japan’s Lost Generation, June 5, 1992, New York Times

[5] Jennifer Lee, “When Horses Posed a Public Health Hazard”, June 9 2008, New York Times

Alex Jones-Probert is the runner-up of the 18-21 category in the ASI's 'Young Writer on Liberty' competition.

Aditya Chakrabortty says we're all being terribly mean to Greta Thunberg

Apparently us on the right are just being most mean, playing the girl not the ball. We’ll even admit to have made the occasional pointed comment elsewhere. But the actual argument against Greta Thunberg’s demands is that they are wrong:

Which left the eco-denialists back here with a stonking great headache: how to bash this 16-year-old celeb? Not by dismantling her arguments, not when the scientists and Sir David of Blue Planet back her up. Nor by sniffing around her record, since by definition a teenager hasn’t much of a past to rake over. The standard methods of political warfare off-limits to them, they are trying something new and unusual. They are sinking their teeth into her.

She was “chilling”, declared Brendan O’Neill, editor of the hard-right website Spiked, after picking on her “monotone voice” and “look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes”. Given Thunberg’s openness about her Asperger’s, this was a dog whistle if he knew about it, but it was at best crass if he didn’t: the kid’s on the spectrum! Bringing up the rear were the bloggers at Guido Fawkes, trying to eke a three-course meal out of the morsel that Thunberg’s mum performed in the Eurovision song contest 10 years ago – cast-iron proof of “an incredibly privileged background”. This finding has been gurningly spread on social media by none other than that vomiting dustbin of opinions Toby Young. You don’t need to be much sharper than him to observe that he is the son of a baron who rang Oxford University to get his boy a place.

Aren’t the comrades just being horrible?

And to the actual arguments. Start with assuming the IPCC is entirely correct, climate change is happening, we’re causing it, we should stop doing so. What is it then that we should do? The Stern Review tells us that we should not have emissions targets and favourite technologies and selective subsidies and the central planning of the economy. Some things are just too important for us to not use the powers of markets. We should change price incentives the once and allow those markets to chew through them - a carbon tax.

Which is something that the UK has, largely and not perfectly, done. So too the EU with the ETS.

William Nordhaus gained his Nobel last year largely for exploring another aspect of the same question. We should not try to root out everything we’ve already built and replace. Apart from anything else there’s a lot of embedded CO2 in whatever it is that we build. Instead we should work with the capital replacement cycle. Use up the built environment then make sure that when we replace, in the normal course of things, we do so with non- or less- emittive constructions.

The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, the foundational document of the entire IPCC process, points out that a globalised capitalism with such a gradual change in energy generation technology - the A1T scenario - nicely solves the problem for us. And also leaves future humanity as rich as it is possible to do so while still solving that very problem of climate change.

Other than those price incentives the only other action necessary is investment in driving down the costs of those non-emittive technologies. As per Stern, Nordhaus and all sorts of other people perhaps some judicious government investment in solar panel technologies, batteries, grids able to deal with variable supplies and so on. As even Bill McKibben can be found agreeing we’ve done that. The necessary technologies exist. As per Stern, Nordhaus etc, they will naturally be the first choice in that replacement cycle. To insist that they won’t be is to insist that they’re not ready for prime time yet.

Greta Thunberg argues that we’ve got to tear up the entirety of society and start again. All the adults in the room argue that we’re on the right path, we just need a few more tweaks here and there and then wait for markets to do their thing.

Thus the argument against Greta Thunberg and the adulation she’s receiving isn’t that she’s a teenager, nor anything else more personal about her or her character. It’s simply that she is entirely misinformed, ignorant even, on the subject under discussion.

As the IPCC assumes as it starts its work, the solution to climate change is a non-fossil fuel using globalised and free market capitalism. People proposing other solutions just aren’t in tune with, are ignorant of, the relevant science. As Greta isn’t proposing that then she’s incorrect. Which is the argument as to why we should ignore her.

When Hungary began dismantling the Iron Curtain

Many Hungarians are rightly proud of their country’s role in ending the Cold War. On May 2nd, 1989, the Hungarian government began dismantling their part of the iron curtain that stretched across Europe “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.” Hungary’s part of it was a 240km line of rusty barbed wire fencing just inside its border with Austria. An Austrian friend once took me through a forest to see it and one of its watch towers from a safe distance.

First they turned off the electricity that ran through it, then they began cutting sections of the wire. When Hungary's Foreign Minister, Gyula Horn, and his Austrian counterpart, Alois Mock, held a symbolic fence-cutting ceremony at the crossing, both armed with heavy bolt cutters, and filmed by Western TV crews, much of the barbed wire had already gone, sold for scrap by the Hungarian army. The most visible sign in the first few weeks was the number of cars in nearby Austrian towns such as Graz with washing machines strapped on top.

The main impact was not on Hungary, however, but on East Germany. While citizens behind the iron curtain could not travel to the West, they could travel to other countries in the Soviet bloc. East Germans could travel to Hungary, and with a hole now cut in the iron curtain, they could escape from there into Austria and on to West Germany. They began to do so in large numbers as the summer developed. Most famously at a “friendship picnic” between Austrians and Hungarians, 900 East Germans used the occasion to make a mass escape across the border. They were even given maps to help them do so. Hungarian border guards were told by their government to “face Austria and check the passports of anyone coming in.” They were told not to look behind them at people going out.

Soon East Germans were taking this escape route in tens of thousands, packing trains and buses, or abandoning their Trabant cars in Hungary as they took their one-way trip to freedom. The East German government was in impotent fury as its population drained Westwards, escaping the Berlin Wall by circumventing it through Hungary. Its leader, Erich Honecker, asked the Soviet government to intervene, but Gorbachev declined.

By their actions, the Hungarian government had lit a fuse that burned its way to the heart of the Soviet system of repression. The Berlin Wall was taken down by East and West German citizens early in November, as the Communist governments of Eastern Europe were toppled one by one, ending the Cold War in a victory for the West.

The people who today enthuse about socialism probably have no knowledge of what life was like in the socialist puppet states of central and Eastern Europe, or of the massive apparatus that had to be erected to keep their citizens from escaping. They probably have no knowledge either of the thousands who died trying.

The Hungarians who began its end knew they were taking a big risk. Their 1956 Revolution had been brutally and bloodily suppressed, and they could not be sure it would not happen again. They tell that when, in the summer of 1989, they reburied the five martyrs of that 1956 rising murdered by the Kremlin, they added a sixth coffin for the remains of communism.

Rage Against The Machine 2.0

The Industrial Revolution saw incredible advancements in technology that increased productivity, reduced prices and dramatically improved standards of living, while also liberating those crippled by abject poverty. But this was not the view that was shared by many at the time. Some saw automation, especially in stocking and textile, as a conspiracy by greedy industrialists to enlarge profits. They believed that new machines will create unemployment en masse, with a permanent underclass of workers who no longer have economic value. An extreme branch of this school of thought, the Luddites, thought that the only way to stop this was to destroy these evil machines. Laissez faire capitalism seemed antithetical to the workers’ progress, and intervention seemed the only remedy.

It goes without saying that the Luddites were wrong. Free markets and innovation led to more employment, not less, and even in the industries that they attempted to de-industrialise. This prediction is widely known as the Luddite fallacy.

However, the fallacy is alive and well. ‘Neo-luddism’ is growing in popularity, from tech tycoons such as Richard Branson, to television political pundits such as Tucker Carlson. Just like their ideological ancestors, they believe that some sort of protectionist measures should be placed on the market mechanism. Their current topic of obsession is the issue of self-driving vehicles, which is set to take over transport and delivery industries. Mr Carlson likely spoke for many techno-phobes when he said he would ban self-driving trucks “in a second” in order to protect the estimated 3.9 million U.S. truck drivers [3]. Actions against self-driving vehicles are already being taken, such as a bill passed in San Francisco in late 2017 that limited the number of autonomous robots on the streets. Ordinary people are also raging against the machine, with reports of “human on robot assaults”.

Such concerns and actions are understandable, but overall are economically and historically illiterate. With regards to the historical indifference, it could be argued that just because automation has never killed jobs (on aggregate), it doesn’t mean that can’t happen. This argument is sound. However, the economic myopia employed by such influential ‘thought leaders’ is that they fail to understand basic economic theory. Automation leads to a short period of displacement and unemployment for workers but in the long run yields lower costs of production, meaning lower prices, higher incomes, and increased demand for labour.

In the case of self-driving cars, the benefits include safer and faster journeys, faster delivery times speeding up supply chains, more trade and higher growth [4]. All of this requires more labour, as this is what will facilitate these growing incomes and lower costs of living.

In order for these benefits to materialise, we must abandon this hostility to technology. Rational discussions and debates should be had.  However, we must remain staunch in our defence of free markets, as only this will permit progress. The future will be exciting and beautiful as a result.

Nim Etzioni is the runner-up of the under 18s category in the ASI's 'Young Writer on Liberty' competition.

Things will never make sense unless you consider migration

There are indeed inequities in this world but few to none of them will make sense unless one considers migration. By which we mean here the internal sorting of the country’s population, not the effects of any influx - or its absence - from outside. That Eastbourne has a higher average lifespan that the Gorbals is true, but that people move to the coastal city to retire explains some to much of that. People who have reached the age of 65 they can retire at having a longer expected lifespan than the population as a whole - and very much longer than places people leave if they can.

Equally, Michael Marmot’s insistences about health inequality become much clearer when we - as he so often fails to do - consider that health inequality itself will cause economic inequality. It is not just and only that economic inequality causes health inequality.

To today’s muttering:

Mind the green gap: access to nature shouldn't be a luxury

An interesting concept in itself, the historical human problem has been how to gain shelter from the ravages of nature. Good to know that capitalism and free markets have inverted that concern. But still, migration isn’t being properly considered:

Access to green space is important for both mental and physical health. There is plenty of research that backs that up, but it is also just common sense, something most of us viscerally feel. Increasingly, however, access to nature is becoming a luxury: growing inequality has resulted in a “green gap”. A recent study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, for example, found that access to parks and green space in American metropolitan areas correlates with class, education and race. The whiter and richer you are, the more likely you are to have access to a few trees.

It is a similar story in the UK. According to a 2013 report by the National Children’s Bureau, for example, the least deprived children in Britain are “nine times more likely than those living in the most deprived areas to have access to green space, places to play and to live in environments with better air quality”.

Let us just take that as being true. What might be causing it?

Let us again take as being true that access to green spaces, parks and the delights of controlled nature, is indeed desirable. So, what is going to happen over the decades? Humans desire these things therefore the richer among us will preferentially purchase where these things exist. The poorer will find their housing needs better met by living in the cheaper areas which do not have them.

That is, it is the very insistence that the greenery is something we value which explains the sorting into rich and poor inhabitants of the relevant areas. As shown by the difference in property prices.

There’s simply so much that cannot be understood without considering the effects of migration.

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

May 1st could be remembered for many things. It was on this day in 1707 that the Act of Union joining England and Wales with Scotland took effect, creating the United Kingdom. It was also on May 1st that the first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, was issued, creating the UK popular mail service that was used so skillfully to disseminate leaflets by the Anti Corn-Law League.

It was also the date in 1851 that Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition, to demonstrate the UK’s achievements to the world, and to sell them. Another great opening on the day was in 1931, when the Empire State Building was dedicated in New York. So iconic was it that it featured two years later in the classic movie, King Kong.

But mostly May 1st is hailed as International Labour Day, celebrating the achievements of working people throughout the world, and by implication, their revolutionary class struggle. It was introduced in the UK as a public (bank) holiday by the Labour government of 1978 as a sop to the unions, in a gesture it was hoped would curb their militancy. It did not.

It exacerbated an unfortunate imbalance of public holidays, already too loaded to the first half of the year. We have them on New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, and Whit Monday - now called the late May holiday. After the late August bank holiday there is nothing until Christmas on December 25th. We could usefully scrap the early May holiday (Mayday holiday) and add something in the Autumn, maybe the Monday following Trafalgar Day on October 21st.

It is not without significance that the socialist Labour Day is celebrated in the Spring, at the time of planting and promise. It is full of hope of what might be achieved. By contrast, the capitalist Labor Day celebrated in America takes place on the first Monday of September, when the harvest is in and its actual achievements can be hailed. The socialist one is of aspiration; the capitalist one is of achievement. It is a useful analogue of the results of the contrasting systems. The one is full of youthful hopes and promises; the other delivers the goods.

It is also of note that “Mayday,” (from the French “m’aidez”) is a call of distress recognized worldwide…

Young Writer on Liberty 2019 Winners

We're happy to announce the winners of our 2019 Young Writer on Liberty competition, and will be showcasing some of their work over the next week! The theme of this year's competition was 'Future Tech'. Entrants wrote three, 400-word articles on this theme, each focusing on how free market policy reforms can accelerate technological progress in innovative areas such as driverless cars, bionic prosthetics, and artificial intelligence.

It was another competitive year with lots of entries received and our judges had a hard time picking the winners. There were categories for the Under-18s and the 18-21s, with a winner and a runner-up in each.

The runner-up of the Under-18 category is Nim Etzioni, and the winner of the Under-18s is Prerak Goel. The runner-up of the 18-21 category is Alex Jones-Probert, and the category winner is Peter Wollweber.

Runners-up will have one of their entries showcased on the ASI blog tomorrow, and category winners will have all three of their pieces posted next week.

Category winners will also receive £150 prize money, whilst both winners and runners-up will receive boxes filled with liberty-related books.

Keep an eye on the blog to read their entries!

Trying things out - say voter ID - is very rarely a waste of time

A useful enough description of a market economy is that everyone gets to try out whatever it is that crosses their synapses then we observe what works and do more of it. Hopefully with the concomitant doing less of what doesn’t. Of course, to an orderly mind this appears ridiculous but experience tells us that this is the system which works better than any other. Not without its problems or faults of course, but still better.

Thus we should be extremely wary of anyone insisting that trying things out is a waste of time. Who knew that humans desired, in their billions, to send cat pictures to each other?

Voter ID trial at local elections is a waste of time, say campaigners

ID required in 10 districts, but Labour and Electoral Reform Society say scheme should be dropped

Hmm, well, maybe:

Voter impersonation comprised just 3% of all alleged electoral offences at last year’s council elections, campaigners have said, warning that an extended trial of compulsory voter ID at Thursday’s local polls is a counterproductive waste of time.

An analysis by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) found that of 266 allegations investigated by police at the 2018 local and mayoral elections, eight involved claims of voter impersonation, which voter ID is intended to reduce.

Of the eight cases, no action was taken in seven, and one was resolved locally. In contrast, 140 of the allegations were about campaigning offences.

We’re perfectly willing to believe that’s true. That voter impersonation isn’t something to be worried about, it’s something that happens at such a small scale, low level, that it’s not even a rounding error. We’re also open to being persuaded by evidence that it’s not such.

So, err, why don’t we find out?

That is, instead of assertions from one side or another on this point, why don’t we collect the best empirical evidence we can and then discuss that? You know, as with science, set up a hypothesis, design tests hoping to invalidate, disprove, that assertion and then see whether the evidence does so?

You know, as with markets, trying stuff out and seeing what fails being what advances the civilisation. There’s also always that soupcon of a suspicion of those who don’t want to test their own assertions or hypotheses. After all, if voter impersonation really isn’t a problem at all then the current tests will show that once and for all and we can forget about it.

Why Hong Kong is wrong to ban vaping and heated tobacco

Hong Kong health authorities are planning to ban alternative smoking products, with the threat of harsh penalties (up to six months in jail) for those who violate the proposed law. International trends in tobacco control play a role in shaping our approach to smoking at home. As part of our global efforts to champion a liberal, harm reduction approach to smoking cessation we submitted evidence to the consultation, drawing on the UK’s world-leading approach in this area.

Banning vaping and heat-not-burn is, to put it bluntly, one of the worst public health policy ideas imaginable. The full submission can be found below (or here on page 171):

———

1 Introduction

1.1 This submission was written on behalf of the Adam Smith Institute by Daniel Pryor who works at the Institute as a research economist. The Adam Smith Institute is one of the world’s leading think tanks. Independent, non-profit and non-partisan, we work to promote free market, neoliberal ideas through research, publishing, media outreach, and education. The Institute is today at the forefront of making the case for free markets and a free society in the United Kingdom.

1.2 This submission will focus on the success of the United Kingdom’s tobacco harm reduction strategy, which (in contrast to Hong Kong’s proposed ban) incorporates a liberal approach to reduced-risk products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco. We will also argue in the submission that the Hong Kong Government’s stated justifications for the proposed ban are not in line with international evidence. A ban would damage Hong Kong’s international reputation as a standard bearer for evidence-based policy and good governance.

1.3 This submission will be structured as follows:

1.3.1 the United Kingdom’s liberal, harm-reduction approach to smoking cessation has successfully reduced smoking rates

1.3.2 banning e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products in Hong Kong will significantly harm public health

1.3.3 international evidence suggests that reduced-risk nicotine products are not a ‘gateway’ to cigarette smoking

2 The United Kingdom’s liberal, harm-reduction approach to smoking cessation has successfully reduced smoking rates

2.1 The basic premise of tobacco harm reduction is simple; make it as easy as possible for smokers to switch to nicotine products that cause them significantly less harm.

2.2 Since their emergence in the UK, successive governments have largely followed public health authorities in taking a broadly liberal, harm reduction approach to e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Our smoking rate is the second lowest in Europe, which is partially due to the rapid market penetration of e-cigarettes.

2.3 The February 2018 evidence review from Public Health England concluded that e-cigarettes are at least 95% safer than conventional cigarettes. Moreover, the latest data available shows that “of the 3.2 million adult e-cigarette users in the UK, more than half have completely stopped smoking. A further 770,000 have given up both smoking and vaping” (Dockrell, 2018). Public health bodies and advocates have repeatedly affirmed their positive impact on smoking cessation, and they are more than 10 times as popular as NHS Stop Smoking services (PHE, 2015).

2.4 There are now more ex-smokers who use e-cigarettes than current smokers (ASH, 2017). The best available evidence, reviewed by Public Health England in February 2018, suggests “an upper bound estimate of around 57,000 additional quitters annually resulting from e-cigarettes (lower bound around 22,000).”

2.5 A 2019 peer-reviewed, independent randomized control trial found that e-cigarettes are almost twice as effective at helping smokers give up tobacco than other alternatives such as nicotine patches or gum (Hajek et. al, 2019). In their February 2018 evidence update, Public Health England stated that “to date there have been no identified health risks of passive vaping to bystanders.”

2.6 Public Health England has also recently summarised the emerging evidence base for heated tobacco products by stating that they “may be considerably less harmful than tobacco cigarettes and more harmful than e-cigarettes.” The Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) recently looked at two heat-not-burn products available in the UK and found that compared to conventional cigarettes “there were some HPHCs [harmful and potentially harmful compounds] where the reduction was approximately 50%, but the reduction in a number of other HPHCs was greater than 90%.”

2.7 Since 2014, several heat-not-burn products have been introduced in Japan: Philip Morris’ IQOS in 2014, followed Japan Tobacco’s Ploom Tech in March 2016 and British American Tobacco’s glo later that year. In one year, Heatsticks (the tobacco units used with IQOS) massively increased their market share in Japan from 2.2% to 10% (PMI, 2017). This is likely to have been partially driven by IQOS being featured on a popular Japanese TV entertainment show in April 2016, and the rise in use has been so great that Heatsticks now outsell Marlboro cigarettes (Tabuchi et. al, 2017). The displacement of smokers to heated tobacco in Japan is clearly reflected in significant declines in cigarette sales (Abrams et. al, 2017).

2.8 The draft bill claims that the “public may underestimate the harmful effects of these products”, but in the UK the opposite is true. PHE’s latest February 2018 summary of survey evidence on smokers’ knowledge of the relative risks of e-cigarettes is extremely alarming: “Only half of smokers believe that EC are less harmful than smoking and this decreases to one third among smokers who have never tried EC...In contrast to evidence to date, it appears that a majority of smokers and ex-smokers does not think that complete replacement of cigarettes with EC would lead to major health benefits...Where available, international data show similar misperceptions around nicotine and relative harmfulness of EC and smoking as in England. International data also support the trends of increased harm perception of EC with the exception of one survey in youth in the US.”

3 Banning e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products in Hong Kong will significantly harm public health

3.1 International evidence shows that allowing reduced-risk nicotine products as part of a tobacco control strategy can yield enormous public health gains.

3.2 The Adam Smith Institute's 2018 report “1 Million Years of Life: How harm reduction in tobacco policy can save lives” uses World Health Organisation estimates of additional life expectancy from quitting smoking at different ages and Public Health England estimates of e-cigarette relative risk to estimate that 1,036,640 years of life could be saved if young women vaped at the same rate as young men. While 8.9% of British young men vape, for British women it is just 2.6%. Women are however continuing to smoke with nearly 16% of women aged 16-24 smoking.

3.3 Previous estimates of positive public health impacts from increased e-cigarette adoption amongst smokers have come to varied conclusions but are all indicative of significant gains. For example, recent modelling of e-cigarette adoption’s potential effects on premature deaths and life years saved in the United States has yielded pessimistic estimates that “1.6 million premature deaths are averted with 20.8 million fewer life years lost” (Levy et. al, 2018).

3.3 Survey evidence suggests that the most common reason for UK smokers who have tried e-cigarettes no longer using them is that the product does not imitate smoking closely enough (ASH, 2017).

3.4 Evidently, different smokers have different preferences and the more variety of reduced-risk products on the market (including those that may imitate the experience of cigarettes more closely), the more likely it is that smokers will switch.

3.5 A robust harm reduction approach should ensure that heat-not-burn devices and hybrid products (such as those that pass e-cigarette vapour through tobacco for flavour purposes) are treated according to their relative risk profiles under the law.

4 International evidence suggests that reduced-risk nicotine products are not a ‘gateway’ to cigarette smoking

4.1 Contrary to media reports, the available international evidence shows that reduced-risk products do not attract young never-smokers to regular use at a significant level.

4.2 Young people who initiate e-cigarette use are likely to have taken up smoking anyway.

4.3 Public Health England’s February 2018 evidence review concluded that “despite some experimentation with these e-cigarettes among never smokers, e-cigarettes are attracting very few young people who have never smoked into regular use...The ‘common liability’ hypothesis seems a plausible explanation for the relationship between e-cigarettes and smoking implementation.”

4.4 Even if never-smokers were attracted to reduced-risk products on the margin, the public health costs of a ban (i.e. far more cigarette smokers) would far outweigh the marginal gains from preventing such uptake.

4.5 Youth uptake of heated tobacco devices is extremely unlikely to be significant, given the comparatively high price point of heat-not-burn devices (especially when compared to cigarette prices).

4.6 Appropriate enforcement of age restrictions on reduced-risk products and responsible marketing practices are the best policy approach from a public health perspective.

5 Conclusion

5.1 The Hong Kong Government’s proposed ban on reduced-risk products is contrary to international best practice on smoking cessation and harm reduction.

5.2 Such a ban would create large public health costs with no identifiable benefits.

5.3 Fears of a ‘gateway effect’ from reduced-risk products to cigarettes are unfounded.

5.4 Hong Kong policymakers should consult public health authorities in the United Kingdom on best practice in tobacco harm reduction policy.

28 March 2019

Bibliography

McNeill A, Brose LS, Calder R, Bauld L & Robson D (2018). “Evidence review of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products 2018. A report commissioned by Public Health England.” London: Public Health England. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/684963/Evidence_review_of_e-cigarettes_and_heated_tobacco_products_2018.pdf

Martin Dockrell, "Clearing up some myths around e-cigarettes" (20 February 2018), Public health matters (PHE). Available at: https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2018/02/20/clearing-up-some-myths-around-e-cigarettes/

Public Health England, "E-cigarettes: an emerging public health consensus" (15 September 2015). Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-an-emerging-public-health-consensus

Action on Smoking and Health, "Use of e-cigarettes (vapourisers) among adults in Great Britain" (May 2017). Available at: http://ash.org.uk/download/use-of-e-cigarettes-among-adults-in-great-britain-2017/

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