UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA), the UK’s leading vape trade body, has reacted to the Children’s Commissioner’s recommendations for addressing youth vaping.
In response to the UK government’s ‘Youth Vaping: Call for Evidence’, Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza warned the “Wild West” vaping market urgently needs stricter regulation with some 16% of 11 to 17-year-olds having tried vaping.
She said it is “insidious” that companies were intentionally marketing and promoting vapes to children with bright colours and flavours and called for vapes to be sold in plain packaging and called for age-of-sale signs on vaping products like cigarettes.
In addition, she said the sale of nicotine-free vapes to children should be banned and it should be made easier to issue on-the-spot fines for those selling vapes to children.
Dame Rachel also called for the outright ban on disposable vapes as they are the cheapest vapes available and therefore more attractive to children.
She said: “The DHSC’s consultation on youth vaping is a timely opportunity to consider the risks, and I sincerely hope it will be the catalyst for change that is so urgently needed.”
In response, John Dunne, Director General of UKVIA, said the problem is “an access issue not a product issue”.
He added: “The enforcement of age regulations in the vaping sector is currently a broken system. Research just published by Arcus Compliance this week following Freedom of Information Requests reveals just two successful prosecutions against illicit vape traders across six major UK cities over the past three years.
“In addition, across the same cities and time period less than £2,500 in penalties – the maximum for one offender – were issued to retailers for underage/illicit sales.
“The fact is trading standards needs increased government backing to tackle rogue traders and cut off the source of supply to minors.”
Dunne also disagree with the proposal to introduce plain packaging. he said: “It will conflate vaping with smoking and will add to the misperceptions that already abound regarding the relative risk of vaping compared to smoking; thereby potentially deterring smokers from attempting to quit using vapes; and raising doubts amongst vapers who may then consider returning to their former smoking habits.
“Interestingly, new research just conducted by YouGov amongst 1,000 16-17 year olds has revealed that only 8% would stop vaping if vapes became plain in colour.”
