Stubbing out the tobacco and nicotine industry’s harmful products: improving Scotland’s health
ASH Scotland’s manifesto briefing for 2026 Scottish Parliament election
ASH Scotland is calling on all political parties to join us in working to achieve the goal of reducing smoking rates to 5% or less across all our communities by 2034 to reduce inequalities, premature deaths, tobacco-related costs to Scottish society and tackle the public health concern of nicotine addiction among our children and young people.
Tobacco remains a leading cause of ill health and death in Scotland The tobacco industry makes products which are not only addictive and health-harming but, when used as the manufacturer intended, will kill up to two thirds of the 685,000 people in Scotland who smoke.
Inequalities driven by use of tobacco There is a huge inequalities gap between the most deprived and more affluent areas with smoking prevalence in our poorest Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) 1 quintles being 23%, while it is 6% for the least deprived SIMD 5 quintiles.
The cost of smoking to Scotland’s society, economy and environment The estimated cost of smoking to the health service, social care and responding to fire-related incidents in Scotland was £1.56 billion in 2024, and is projected to reach £2.5 billion by 2035/36.
Scotland's adolescent recreational nicotine epidemic Young people who use vapes are at three times greater risk starting to smoke tobacco. Vapes contain high levels of addictive nicotine as well as toxic chemicals and carcinogens producing both short-term and long-term damage.
Use the most powerful policy levers Tobacco companies line their pockets with an estimated £900 million profit in the UK.
Introducing a polluter pays levy at UK level and a public health levy in Scotland would
hold tobacco producers and supplier chains financially accountable for the damage done by health harming products.
Stub out harms and inequalities caused by tobacco
With Big Tobacco making an estimated £900 million profit in the UK and smoking rates in Scotland being consistently higher than the UK average, revenue ring-fenced for prevention and cessation services can be generated by introducing levies on this predatory industry and corporations involved in the supply chain.
Behavioural support from NHS Scotland’s Quit Your Way services improves the chance of success by three to four times. In 2024/25, 5,352 successful 12-week quits were supported in deprived areas, short of the target of 7,026 quits.
Scottish Government funding to NHS regional health boards to deliver smoking prevention and cessation services decreased from £10,610,000 to £9,144,964 between 2016/17 and 2021/22, and no details are available for recent years.
The Scottish Government provided a budget of £370,978 to run a smoking cessation campaign in 2017/18, and then Public Health Scotland spent only £70,000 each time to deliver campaigns to promote Quit Your Way in 2023/24 and 2025/26.
Calculations by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) suggest that every £1 invested in smoking cessation could save £10 in future healthcare costs and health benefits.
Recommendations
- Introduce a polluter pays levy at UK level and a public health levy in Scotland to hold tobacco companies and supply chain corporations accountable for the damage done by health harming products, with restrictions on price controls so that the financial payment comes from producer and wholesale profits, and not from consumers or retailers.
- The Scottish Government should demonstrate transparency and accountability by annually publishing its funding for smoking prevention and cessation services and direct NHS regional health boards to ring-fence funding for those services.
- Reduce inequalities through targeted support for deprived and high-risk communities where smoking prevalence is highest by investing £10 million each year for smoking prevention and cessation services, and extend support to treat nicotine addiction.
- The Scottish Government should provide funding of £375,000 each year to run mass
media, social media and outdoor advertising campaigns highlighting health and financial benefits to motivate people who smoke or use recreational nicotine products to quit.
Stub out tobacco industry attempts to distort, disrupt or delay regulation of its addictive health-harming products
ASH Scotland challenges corporate interference in public health by rebutting
tobacco industry misinformation and upholding the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Article 5.3.
The tobacco industry and its commercial allies consistently try to undermine public health efforts through disrupting or delaying regulations by claiming to be part of solutions to problems it created, while aggressively targeting marketing of addictive health harming products such as vapes and nicotine pouches at young people.
The Scottish Government committed to audit its compliance with WHO’s FCTC Article 5.3 in its 2013 tobacco strategy, but has yet to do so.
Recommendations
- The Scottish Government and all MSPs should reject all attempts by the tobacco industry and its vested or commercial interests to interfere in policy development and avoid any appearance of partnership working regarding tobacco and recreational nicotine products such as vapes and nicotine pouches.
- The Scottish Government should audit its compliance in upholding the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control FCTC Article 5.3 and publish a report within 12 months of taking office.
Stub out cigarette filters and extend SAFE spaces to create health promoting environments
Scotland was one of the first nations to ban smoking in enclosed public places on 26 March 2006. The ban led to a 17% reduction in hospital admissions for heart attacks in its first year, significant progress compared to the 3% annual reduction in the preceding decade.
There was a decrease in heart attacks across people who smoked, former smokers and nonsmokers due to reduced second-hand smoke exposure. It also led to an 18% annual reduction in hospital admissions for childhood asthma, which had been increasing by 5% each year.
ASH Scotland advocates for extending smokefree and aerosol-free environments (SAFE spaces) to areas used by children to challenge the normalisation of smoking or vaping and create health promoting communities protected from second-hand smoke and toxic particulate aerosol exposure.
We also advocate for a ban of all cigarette
filters which offer no health benefits,
exacerbate environmental damage, mislead people who smoke into considering cigarettes to be safer, and discourage quit smoking attempts.
Recommendations
- Extend SAFE spaces to include all public indoor and enclosed spaces to protect people from breathing pollutants where second-hand smoke or particulate aerosols are present.
- Extend SAFE spaces to include public areas frequently used by children such as school grounds and playparks.
- Extend SAFE spaces to protect people in all working environments.
- Ban all cigarette filters.
Stub out the youth vaping epidemic by preventing uptake of recreational nicotine products
Tobacco industry promotions have lured children into starting to use their addictive,
harmful products for decades and the same is happening with recreational nicotine products such as vapes and pouches.
The high levels of nicotine in pouches have strong effects on the cardiovascular system and is a health risk for children.
To protect the health of children now and of future generations, the availability and
marketing of vapes, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco and herbal smoking products must be restricted as a matter of urgency.
Recommendations
- Ban advertising, promotions and the visibility of vapes and nicotine pouches in retail environments to ensure they cannot be seen.
- Ban added flavours and standardise device designs and packaging by preventing imagery, colours, descriptors and branding attractive to children on all vapes and nicotine pouches.
- The Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland should routinely publish robust data on children’s use of tobacco, vapes and nicotine pouches which is representative of the spectrum of Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).
Download and read our full manifesto for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election here.
Find the references for the statistics and figures in our manifesto for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election here.
Get support with quitting smoking
Find out about the support that is available to help you quit.
Sharing your story with us can play a crucial role in helping someone to quit.
Working with young people
There are a number of ways that we can help reduce the harm that smoking causes to young people.