After Théodule-Augustin Ribot [johnsadlerillustration.com]

• THE government pledge to crack down on companies who aim at children with their vaping products comes, as is so often the way, after the horse has long bolted.

This exploitation of children must have started with a meeting of identifiable people in a boardroom somewhere hearing how targeting kids with sweet and fruity flavours would open up a lucrative market before collectively deciding: “Let’s do it!”

Of course, they could argue that nobody really knows of the long-term health damage that could be done by such products (and resulting costs to the NHS and society generally); but given the crippling fiscal hangover from tobacco-smoking, they surely should have exercised a bit of caution.

No such excuse can be extended to the food manufacturers whose insidious processed “treats” are known to contribute to the current catastrophic obesity epidemic with ingredients known to suppress the sense of “feeling full” and devised to encourage addiction.

Surely these products need to be nipped in the bud and companies responsible for producing them landed with a bill for the resulting extra costs to the public purse. Particularly those products that effectively amount to child abuse.

KW HOWARTH, NW5