sensing a culture war against vapes, really?

Isn't there? Every time someone dies who happened to also vape the first to report is the Daily Heil and The Sun etc, then follow the Tory establishment mouthpieces who shy away less and less from culture war shite as long as they dress it up all nice for Surrey wine moms.

It's almost as if the old business like Murdoch and Philip Morris interests are playing you to hate vaping so they can get it banned and win back marketshare from the shenzen vape/gadget mega industry that absolutely obliterated them.

It's almost as if the people in charge of these have read a history book once and know prohibition of drugs - including nicotine - doesn't work and they want to corner a market which is still a ton of money.

And it's almost as if the disposable grift from the shenzen slop factories gave them the perfect storm to jump on this due to bad optics (stickers on bins) and you're a pawn caught in-between, forced to abandon all reason and even a pretense of objectivity, driven to a steaming fervour about things that have zero impact on your life to push for illiberal restrictive authoritarian policies restricting the freedoms of some unknown "others".

If you could just realize this, instead of defending conglomerates on your free time, then maybe we'd be in a better world right now. I hope it makes some sense.

It seems the government is going to consult about extending a vape ban

Yes, this bill gives them the power to do so, which in itself signals intention fairly well when you add onto it the specificity of other restrictions mentioned (packaging, flavour) and the existence of the new vape tax alongside it.

but it’s become a zombie and is making a lot of kids addicted to nicotine.

Yeah this goes without saying - don't smoke, kids. Don't vape, either. Even if it's harmless it's a waste of money and while I like it most people wish they never started.

That also however doesn't mean that adults shouldn't get the option of vaping without the morality police peeking in.