New TCRG Research on Industry Response to Ban on Single-Use E-cigarettes

A new paper from the Tobacco Control Research Group investigates the tobacco industry’s response to the UK’s ban on single-use/“disposable” e-cigarettes, which entered into force on 1 June 2025.

The researchers analysed 21 consultation responses from four transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) and ten TTC-linked organisations. This paper is the first to examine the tobacco industry response to a single-use e-cigarette ban and, more broadly, to regulation framed around both health and environmental concerns.

Senior author Dr Britta Matthes explains:

“This paper suggests that the tobacco industry is likely to respond to environmental policies in a similar way to those based on public health alone. The tobacco companies opposed the ban on single-use e-cigarettes, acknowledging the challenges they pose, while attempting to distance them from their own products and practices. They also sought to present themselves as responsible public health and environmental actors, including by proposing alternative measures less disruptive to their commercial interests.”

Read the paper:

• The tobacco industry at the health–environment nexus: a framing analysis of the UK ‘disposable’ e-cigarette ban, P. Lomngam, R. Hiscock, K. Evans-Reeves, B.K. Matthes. Health Promotion International, Published Online First: 23 December 2025, doi: daaf218/8402156

See also the Tobacco Tactics pages:

• E-cigarettes: Tobacco Company Interests in Single Use Products [updated January 2026]

• E-cigarettes

And the Tobacco Tactics Long Read:

• Plastics, the Environment and the Tobacco Industry, K. Evans-Reeves, T. Novotny, L. Huber, M. Violini