Vaping crackdown ineffective, experts say

The crackdown on disposable vapes is under fire. Photo / Getty Images

Moves to ban disposable vapes to discourage youths from taking up the habit have been labelled ”short-sighted” as manufacturers have already adapted their vaping systems to offer low-cost alternatives, experts say.

The ban, introduced by the Government in stages over the past year, was an attempt to make it harder for young people to pick up and continue vaping.

However, an expert says the ban has not achieved its aim and has only resulted in slight changes to product design by incorporating removable batteries.

A teen vaper believes the mandated vapes are just as accessible for young people because they are still selling for as little as $10.

In December last year, retailers, distributors, New Zealand manufacturers and importers were required to sell single-use vaping products that met nicotine limits of 20mg/mL, had a removable battery, a child safety mechanism and met labelling requirements.

New vape retailers would also not be able to operate within 300m of a school or marae.

The previous Government introduced regulations for disposable vaping devices but experts believe they are ineffective. Photo / Getty Images

In March, these changes will be required for all vapes, as well as flavour branding being tightened and a ban on the use of images of toys or cartoons.

Director of Action on Smoking and Health Ben Youdan said, in his view, the disposable ban “seems like a workaround to try and stop single-use devices, but with little understanding or insight into how the products are made or work”.

“From our perspective, the way the disposable ban was done - by making batteries removable was pretty short-sighted.”

He believed the mandate did not achieve the policy objective and only changed the product slightly in design.

In his view: “It has made cheaply made products even more hazardous as the battery becomes disposable.”

He believed the reason the Government mandated removable batteries instead of a complete ban on disposables was the popularity and positive impact single-use devices had on lower-income people trying to quit smoking.

Vaping was still considerably cheaper than smoking even if people used a more expensive and better-quality vape.

Vapes within the new regulations are just as affordable and accessible for young people, some people say. Photo / Jenov Jenovallen

Director of Vapo and member of the Vaping Industry Association New Zealand Ben Pryor said the vaping company wanted a complete ban on disposables as it believed it was the strongest way to reduce youth vaping.

He believed the new regulations had the opposite effect to what the Government intended.

“Manufacturers have created a way to drive down the prices within the new regulations by introducing pod-style disposable vapes.

‘‘These vaping devices are more cost-effective to produce than an entire disposable device as the buyer only needs to replace the small battery.”

He believed the removable or replaceable battery regulation also made them more hazardous as the lithium-ion battery was not sealed in the device.

“In phones, laptops and sealed vapes, the batteries are protected by a printed circuit board that keeps the battery in a controlled condition and should only be removed by someone with experience,” said Pryor.

Now, they could easily be damaged or short-circuited by storing the batteries in your pocket with metal objects like keys, he said.

“Non-compliant vaping products are [also] still readily available around the country as there has been no enforcement of these rules,” Pryor said. This included disposable vapes on the market after December 21 that did not comply with labelling requirements, were sealed disposable vapes and did not label nicotine levels.

The company proposed the Government take certain steps it believed would effectively prohibit the sale of disposable vapes.

The first was to ban the technology facilitating the low-cost production of disposables to disrupt the ease of manufacturing.

“Secondly, the Ministry of Health should adopt a rigorous pre-approval process, meticulously scrutinising all product specifications before granting permission for sale.”

This step would ensure only compliant and high-quality products entered the market.

The third step was to transfer regulatory control of vaping to the Ministry of Justice, given the department’s established success in alcohol licensing.

The Government decision followed concerns about young people vaping - including one study that showed 10 per cent of Year 10 students vaped daily.

In a post-Cabinet press conference last June, then-Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said there would be “a crackdown on disposable vapes” where “all vaping devices would need to have removable batteries to improve their safety.” .

“The upshot of that is it will effectively curtail the availability of much cheaper single-use vapes that are popular amongst young people,” he said.

But an 18-year-old who vapes said the newly regulated vapes were essentially “definitely still disposables” and were just as affordable and accessible as before.

The teenager, who spoke on the condition he was not named, was planning to quit when the ban came into effect because he thought the ban “would be much stricter”.

“I thought it was annoying but at least it would help me quit because I wouldn’t be able to buy disposables any more.”

But he said the $10 single-use vapes were still on the market and for the same price, only now they had a removable battery and a child safety mechanism.

“All the brands are doing is making them legally compliant because they’re definitely still disposables”.

A Rotorua mother, who found her daughter’s disposable vape in a draw when she was 11, said it wasn’t just older siblings who provided children with vapes.

The 11-year-old bought the vape from a low-cost shop and the mother said there was “no mistaking her age”.

She said she was sad someone had let her daughter buy it and her 16-year-old son had also told her he could buy them at certain locations, too.

“It’s hard for parents to tell because you can easily hide the smell. I just thought she was eating lots of hubba bubba.”

Asthma and Respiratory Foundation NZ chief executive Letitia Harding said “late last year, we learnt that the number of teenagers vaping every day had almost doubled in 12 months”.

She believed the new laws would not reverse those figures as disposables were still available with rechargeable batteries, and once used, tossed in the rubbish.

“Accessibility is also still a major issue – young people are getting their hands on vapes regardless of their age,” Harding said.

In response to last year’s regulations, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello said “while vaping is a useful tool to help people stop smoking, this Government is concerned about the attractiveness of vapes to young people”.

“The National-New Zealand First Coalition Agreement has a commitment to reform the regulation of vaping products,” she said.

This included banning disposable vaping products and increasing penalties for illegal sales to those under 18.

“New Zealand has seen some of the largest drops in smoking rates in the world recently – 55,000 stopped smoking last year – and that wouldn’t have been achieved without access to vaping products.

“The balance that we need to achieve is providing people access to vaping to stop smoking, while not getting young people hooked on vaping. We want to make the regulatory regime more effective and improve enforcement.”

Many of the 55,000 people who quit smoking last year wouldn’t have achieved it without access to vaping products, says Associate Health Minister Casey Costello. Photo / 123RF

Harriet Laughton is a multi-media journalist based in the Bay of Plenty.