Majority of British Trading Standards Officers Say Sale of Vapes in Shops to Children Is Top Concern

A festival-goer is seen vaping at Reading Festival in Reading, west of London, on Aug. 27, 2021. (Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images)

A rise in shops selling vaping products to children as young as 12 is causing alarm among Trading Standards officers in England and Wales, according to new research.

A survey by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) has found 60 percent of local Trading Standards services are most concerned about high street shops selling illicit vapes or vaping products to children.

Trading Standards said it has seen a surge in illicit sales of vaping products by specialist shops, convenience stores, and corner shops over the past year.

More than 1.4 tonnes of illegal vapes seized in the last six months of 2022 in the north east of England alone.

Significant Rise

Trading Standards teams across England and Wales reported a significant rise in underage vape sales last year.

CTSI chief executive John Herriman said: “While we recognise that vaping can be a useful quitting aid for smokers, we are worried about increasing breaches of the law, with many non-compliant devices being sold on the UK’s high streets.

“There is also an increasing problem with vaping products being sold to children in many general retail premises such as mobile phone shops, gift shops, and convenience stores.

“Trading Standards teams are doing vital work by cracking down on the unscrupulous retailers who are selling these products to young people without the legally required age verification checks. It is important that vaping products comply with rules that were established to safeguard public health, and that they do not end up in the hands of children,” he added.

David MacKenzie, chairman of the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland, said: “Single-use vapes in particular are very cheap, they have bright colours, and they are attractive to children.”

“With a lot of our age-restricted product work on tobacco and cigarettes, fireworks and traditional vapes, we’re looking at sales to 16 and 17 year olds,” he added.

But we were getting good information that these are being sold to much younger children, or certainly finding their way into the hands of 12 and 13 year olds,” said MacKenzie.

1 in 10 Children Vape in England

Last year, doctors warned that generations of children could become hooked on nicotine after new figures show an increasing number of teenagers are being tempted to smoke cheap sweet-flavoured e-cigarettes, even though their long-term effects are still unknown.

The figures from a survey conducted for NHS Digital found that 9 percent of 11- to 15-year-olds in England now regularly use e-cigarettes, a rise from 6 percent in 2018.

The highest use trend was among girls aged 15, which rose from 10 percent in 2018 to 21 percent last year.

While the mass survey found that vaping had increased, drug use and smoking are reportedly in decline among young people.

Vapes and e-cigarettes and their refill containers are regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). According to UK rules, products must comply with tank capacity and nicotine strength limits and labels must display manufacturer details and health warnings.

A study from the European Academy of Paediatrics said that e-cigarettes include numerous unregulated chemicals, including known carcinogens, whose acute and long-term toxicities are unknown.

Professor Andrew Bush, director of Imperial Centre for Paediatrics and Child Health and a consultant paediatric chest physician at Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals, told The Epoch Times that he was very concerned by children’s access to both legal and illegal vapes.

“I am very concerned about the rapid rise in the number of children using these things, and risking nicotine addiction, and how easy it is for these things to be accessed by the young,” he said.

“Advertising and the flavoured liquids are clearly targeted at the young. My concerns are for both legal and illegal vapes. There is no crackdown, only complacency. The UK is totally out of step with the rest of the world,” he added.

‘Hooking’ Children

Trading Standards said many of the devices it had seized flouted rules and that there were some designed specifically to appeal to children and young people, with packaging and flavours emulating popular sweet brands.

The charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) found that children were increasingly drawn to cheap disposable e-cigarettes which come in candy, alcoholic drink, energy drink, soft drink flavours, and more.

Another study by ASH, released in July, found that the young are influenced by social media sites such as TikTok and Instagram.

In response, TikTok said that “regardless of a user’s age, we strictly prohibit content that depicts or promotes the sale, trade, or offer of tobacco, including vaping products, and we will remove any content found to be violating our community guidelines.”

At the time, Dr. Mike McKean, vice president of policy at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said that children are being “targeted by e-cigarette companies with bright packaging, exotic flavours, and enticing names” and without action “we run the risk of having generations of children addicted to nicotine.”

“Disposable e-cigarettes are growing in popularity amongst children and young people and can be accessed easily in newsagents and sweet shops. Nowadays there is a vape shop on almost every high street,” he said.

“These companies are simply interested in ‘hooking’ children and young people to make a profit off them, there is absolutely no thought or care about their health and wellbeing,” added McKean.

PA Media contributed to this report.