UK to leave EU

[Tiberius]

PS. and it wasn't because of vaping it was to do with a blatant infringement of Art.10 ECHR and where that might lead ...

You've yet to explain properly how the legislation actually violates freedom of expression. As I told you before, and showed you via the UK government website, the legislation only bans adverts and commercial communications. It does not ban discussions, blog posts, reviews, etc. of any products. In fact, it's even better than that, because the legislation even allows e-cigarettes to appear on all of the following: cinema, fax, outdoor posters, posters on sides of buses (not travelling outside of the UK), leaflets, and direct hard copy mail.

Look, I get it, you think the ban is a silly one, because e-cigarettes can be used to smoke non-nicotine based products. That's fine, you have your opinion. However, smoking adverts have been banned for years in the UK, and the long term effect was a reduction in the number of smokers, especially amongst younger people. The point of banning an e-cigarette from an advert is because most vapers use them with nicotine, so the association between e-cigarettes and nicotine exists and is overwhelming. For a government which wants to reduce the number of people addicted to nicotine, banning adverts containing e-cigarettes makes perfect sense.

There isn't really an alternative, because an e-cigarette that uses nicotine looks exactly like an e-cigarette that doesn't. The only viable alternative would be no ban at all, but that's not going to happen because the government and the NHS actually want results.