A new report from Prohibition Does Not Work (PDNW) finds that the Netherlands’ vaping flavour prohibition has totally undermined any control over the market and failed to achieve its public health goals.
Instituted in 2024 out of fear of a non-existent ‘youth gateway effect’, the ban has instead driven over half of consumers to a black market, provoking both a doubling in youth vaping, and increase in cigarette consumption.
“The Dutch experience is a textbook example of policy backfiring,” said Tim Andrews, Founder of Prohibition Does Not Work. “You cannot ban demand out of existence. What this policy has done is push consumers out of the regulated market and into illicit channels, while early indicators suggest some are being driven back to smoking. That is the opposite of what public health policy should be”.
In the past two years since the ban on all non-tobacco flavours for vapour products was implemented the market has been substantially distorted:
• Youth vaping more than doubled, rising from 3.7% (2023) to 7.6% (2024).
• Adult vaping fell from 3.86% (2023) to 2.3% (2026) as the legal market shrank, with those who continued to vape accessing illicit channels: 27% buying abroad, 31% using illicit online sellers, 33% still finding products in local shops.
• Cigarette consumption rose by 1% in 2024 (~60 million additional cigarettes), while 27% of former vapers reported smoking more or initiating smoking after the ban.
• 42% of inspected retailers were non-compliant, while 8 out of 10 consumers declared that it is very easy to buy flavored vapes.
The report argues that rather than eliminating demand, the policy displaced it into less regulated and more dangerous channels. Michael Ellis, PDNW Principal Global Advisor and former Assistant Director at INTERPOL, said the findings reflect a well-established pattern in illicit markets: “When legal access is restricted but demand remains, illicit trade expands to fill the gap,” Ellis said. “That brings lower-quality products, greater risks to consumers, lost government revenue, and new opportunities for organised crime. We see this dynamic again and again across different sectors and the Netherlands is now a clear example.”
European policymakers in Brussels recently released their ‘evaluation’ of the existing Tobacco Products Directive, referencing the Dutch experience as a positive example to preference a ‘precautionary’ (prohibitionist) approach to vaping. In addition to ignoring the actual evidence outlined in this report as proof of the Netherlands policy failing, this framing completely fails to harness the opportunity vaping presents to displace the well known harms of smoking.
PDNW urged MEPs and Brussels policymakers to critically analyse all the scientific and real-world evidence available rather than relying on the biased and cherry-picked reporting of the EU Commission.
“This is not a theoretical risk — it is now real-world evidence,” Andrews added. “If you remove regulated options that adults actually use, you don’t get a cleaner market. You get a black market.”
Promoted by Prohibition Does Not Work (PDNW)
