Smoke alarm
Fears vaping flavours & colours attract kids
Watermelon bubble gum, blueberry sour raspberry, gummy bear, ginger cola sound like sweets – but they are definitely not for kids.
These are some of the flavours of electronic-cigarette liquids which make vaping so popular.
Since 2015 vaping has been promoted as a way to stop smoking but it has also become a habit. The UK has 3.2 million regular adult vapers, compared with 5.6 to 6.6 million smokers.
The Government aims to turn smokers into vapers and make England smoker-free by 2030.
To that end one in five smokers will be sent a vape starter kit and offered support to help them kick smoking. Pregnant women addicted to cigs will be given up to £400 in vouchers as an incentive to quit.
Smoking during pregnancy ups the risk of miscarriage and can damage lung and brain tissue in unborn babies. The potential long-term risks of vaping are still largely unknown. Vape pens can cause throat and mouth irritation, headaches and coughs in users, while the nicotine they contain is a stimulant that raises heart rate and can constrict blood vessels, preventing nutrients from getting to the skin.
This leads to premature ageing, and can even increase the risk of heart attacks. But experts agree vaping is far preferable to smoking and 95% less harmful than normal cigarettes, according to Public Health England.
Health psychology professor Dr Lion Shahab, co-director of the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group at University College London, says: “The key difference is there is no combustion going on.
“Combustion is the thing that makes cigarettes so harmful. When you burn tobacco it creates more chemicals, and many of those are carcinogenic. Whereas in e-cigarettes, you heat an e-liquid, which has fewer chemicals in it and there’s no tobacco in it, it’s just nicotine.”
Legally you must be at least 18 to buy e-cigs or the liquids used in them to produce the vapour.
But the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health fears a vaping “epidemic” is looming among younger children. NHS data found that in 2021 nearly 10% of 11-to-15-year-olds had tried an e-cig.
Promoting them is strictly prohibited but the use of bright colours and sweet flavours are more likely to attract children.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Prof Sir Chris Whitty says we must “try everything we can” to reduce vaping among under-18s. Dr Shahab says: “Nicotine is more reinforcing when you start using it younger. “The latest studies have shown that if people start smoking cigarettes in their mid-20s, they will never become as addicted as somebody who started smoking in their teens.” But e-cigs, which can run out after 500 puffs, are causing a headache. Hazardous chemical waste, plastic and lithium batteries can just be dumped into the environment unless disposed of properly.
There is no combustion going on. That is what makes cigarettes so harmful
DR LION SHAHAB COMPARING VAPING AND SMOKING
With disposable e-cigs costing as little as £5, who actually makes the money? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Big Tobacco has its fingers in the vaping pies too.
Their profits look set to rocket even further. The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates the UK’s vaping sector was worth £1.325billion in 2021 alone – up £251m from 2017.
The vaping surge has also been good news to certain small businesses. Amjid Bashir, who owns a newsagents in Glasgow, said e-cigs have been a “lifeline” to his business – “especially after Covid where we’re seeing footfall drastically reduced due to people still working from home”.
He said: “If it hadn’t been for the advent of these disposable vapes, many businesses like mine would have collapsed.
“With traditional tobacco sales, you’re talking about profits of 6-7%. Now 50% of those sales are due to disposable vapes, where the profit margin is 50%”