For smokers, vaping can be a means of quitting smoking, but more and more young people are also eying a vape. Producers are deliberately targeting young people: increasingly the vape is becoming a trendy gadget for schoolchildren, but how easy is it for minors to get hold of one?
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More and more minors are vaping: despite the ban, buying e-cigarettes is a piece of cake
Colin Clapson
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Vaping is gaining popularity among 12 to 18-year-olds. Nearly 20 per cent of this group of young people have already vaped, and that number has risen in recent school years. However, the sale of vapes or e-cigarettes to minors is prohibited.
How easy is it for a teenager to get hold of a vape? VRT went out with two 14-year-old girls and took the test. The girls visited several vape shops undercover. Many vendors turned out to be only too willing to turn a blind eye. From watermelon to raspberry flavour, the girls secured a hefty haul fairly easily.
Producers of e-cigarettes also deliberately target young people: the vape is increasingly becoming a school-age gadget: you can find them in all sorts of colours, scents and shapes.
Tightening the law
A ban on fruity vape flavours is not immediately in sight in Belgium, unlike in the Netherlands. However, Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke (Flemish socialist/Vooruit) has announced a tightening from 11 July onwards. Flavours will no longer be allowed to have trendy names and vapes won't be permitted to have lights on them.
"Vapes should be made less attractive to young people," says cancer specialist Filip Lardon (University of Antwerp). While he does not support the Dutch ban on flavourings, he does think that flavours such as bubble-gum and candyfloss - which are clearly aimed at young people - should be restricted. He also advocates stricter controls, although he acknowledges that this will be difficult.
Lardon says it’s partly up to the vaping industry. "Their business model is to get and keep people addicted. Vapes were introduced as a means to help smokers quit smoking - because vaping is less harmful than smoking - and that's fine, but now e-cigarettes are being commercialised and young people are being targeted."
That worries Lardon a lot. "Many vapes contain nicotine. Many young people will become addicted to that. Fortunately, that amount is well regulated in Belgium, allowing a maximum amount of nicotine as in a cigarette. But in countries like the United States and China that can be accessed via web shops the nicotine content is often much higher."
"Nicotine is not only highly addictive but also bad for the heart and brain. At the same time, there are hundreds of chemicals in a vape. These are inhaled into very fragile, young lungs."