Vape stores not following new regulations – Expert Reaction

“In December 2023, vaping regulation changes brought in by the previous government came into effect. The maximum nicotine strength allowed in disposable vapes reduced from 50mg/ml to 20mg/ml, and disposable devices were required to have a child lock and removeable batteries. The intention was to get vaping products favoured by young people (i.e. cheap, disposable, high-nicotine vapes) off the market, and thereby reduce youth vaping uptake.

“Our study showed disposable vapes remained available for NZ$10 or less in most stores, and reusable starter kits were also widely available for NZ$10–20. Discounted high-nicotine disposables were sold for as little as NZ$2.50 each, with the cheapest vapes sold in the most socioeconomically deprived suburbs, where vape stores were clustered. Most low-price disposables did not comply with the new nicotine limits and safety regulations that came into force in December 2023. In the short term, low-price high-nicotine vapes were more easily available than ever, following the regulation change.”The findings highlight the need to disallow discounting of vaping products to avoid “dumping” of non-compliant products, and price promotions that make vapes easily affordable to children. (By law, tobacco products cannot be sold at a discount and the same should apply to vaping products – the current exception for vaping products should be removed.) The study also highlights the need to clarify ambiguities in current and future regulations, as the industry have proved to be adept at exploiting any weaknesses to circumvent or push the boundaries set by government. Enforcement efforts need to be stepped up, and the government should explore additional measures that make the healthy choice the easy choice for young people.

“It is important to consider the wider context, the reasons vaping is attractive to young people, and how underage youth access vaping products. Research suggests ‘social supply’ from friends and family is most common, however a significant minority report buying vaping products themselves. Therefore tightening retail compliance is important, but it is only part of the picture.

“A careful, evidence-based approach is needed that puts young people’s well-being at the centre and takes youth concerns into account, whilst ensuring adults who smoke can easily access vaping products as quitting aids. A significant minority of young people are now addicted to nicotine – the last thing we need is a heavy crackdown on vapes that pushes nicotine-dependent youth towards tobacco smoking. A comprehensive approach is needed that includes provision of vaping cessation support services, and reinstates the evidence-based smokefree measures that were repealed earlier in the year, along with measures to make vapes less appealing and available to young people.”

Conflict of interest statement: Dr Ball is a co-author of this study.

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“In an innovative well-conducted study designed to see if Specialist Vaping Retailers complied with new regulations for single-use vapes, University of Otago researchers sent a 20-year-old ‘secret shopper’ into 74 specialist vape stores in Wellington, Porirua, Lower Hutt, and Upper Hutt – all but 3 of the stores in the area – in January 2024, just three months after the new regulations took effect. They checked R18 signage, age verification, prices and brands of the cheapest available vaping products. They bought a small sample of cheap vapes to assess compliance with the new regulations on nicotine content and safety features.

“Breaches of the regulations were almost universal: most stores were found to be poor at checking age and sold cheap, mostly high-nicotine products, including non-compliant vapes.”The study was limited by its coverage confined to the Wellington region, the small number of products sampled, the lack of laboratory testing of nicotine content to see if it matched the package description, and the exclusion of general vaping retailers.

“Despite these limitations, there is no reason to suspect that the findings of this study would not be generalisable to other areas across New Zealand. To date, the new regulations appear to have been largely ineffective at changing retailer behaviour around underage and non-compliant access to vaping products. The researchers recommend that more enforcement of current and new regulations will be needed to improve retailer compliance. However, in these times of funding constraints, it is hard to imagine current enforcement activities will be expanded. In addition to greater enforcement, given the study’s findings and the fast-evolving novel nicotine and tobacco product market, more frequent monitoring of the retail environment and the products sold, including more comprehensive product testing, will be essential if regulations are to have any impact on reducing illegal sales of vapes to young people, on their health and the health of anyone else who uses these products.”

Conflict of interest statement: “I report a current contract with Health NZ to write Vaping Cessation Guidance for health workers, and another contract with the NZ Public Health Agency monitoring the illicit trade in tobacco; I am a co-investigator on HRC grants on tobacco cessation and a Marsden grant investigating the health effects of vaping.”

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“The research was approved by the University of Otago Human Ethics Committee, reference 23/147. That’s important, as it involved undercover field work by a medical student who took on some personal risk. It also has potential to create community ill-feeling towards small business retailers. It seems the reviewers felt the study could be justified in the context of health risks of youth vaping, principally addiction to nicotine. With vaping, it’s important to keep a sense of proportion. In terms of substances causing harm to youth, hands-down the number one problem is alcohol. In the Drug Foundation’s 2023 report of harms, vaping was 16^th on the list.

“This study demonstrates that the regulations on controlling sales of vapes to young people are not being followed. Stricter enforcement of the legal restrictions of sales to people under the age of 18 years is widely acknowledged as being necessary; this will require more enforcement personnel.

“The research used an adult (20yo) to test age verification, but it is unclear if the tester looked younger than this or not. Store are not required to ID an adult (although they probably should). Most controlled purchase operations for tobacco also use underage, or young looking, older teens.”However, age enforcement alone will not control youth vaping. ASH Year 10 data demonstrate that the main source of vapes for people under the age of 18 years is from friends and acquaintances; it is very easy for a young person to ask a compliant adult to on-sell vapes.

“Reducing youth vaping requires much more than enforcement of the rules on under-age sales, for example, modern health promoting programmes in all schools. At the same time, we must ensure that adults who smoke receive all the help they need to transition away from deadly cigarettes to the much safer forms of nicotine delivery, including vapes; after all, 5000 Kiwis still die each year from cigarette smoking.”

No conflict of interest.