'You only have to look

May 31, 2023

A leading councillor is warning parents to be vigilant and calling for tighter regulation as trading standards make numerous seizures of illicit vapes

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The bright packaging is virtually indistinguishable from sweets, with nicotine-filled devices which look like innocuous highlighter pens.

This is the industry which trading standards officers are grappling with daily. Leading councillors say vaping needs tighter regulation, and warn parents to be vigilant for products which brazenly ape confectionary, with cartoon characters, fruity flavours and crude copies of sweet names like 'Skitle'.

To Councillor Norma Stephenson, Stockton Council's cabinet member for community safety, the objective is clear. "You only have to look at the range of vapes to see what they're aimed at. They're aimed at children.

READ MORE: School's out, vapes out: Concerns over children 'getting younger and younger' using devices

"It is quite striking. The colours for a start, the flavours - bubblegum, watermelon, crushed candy. Then you get the illicit ones that stand out straight away, trademark infringements.

"They're made colourful with one thing in mind. They attract the eye and look like sweets.

"You only have to go past a senior school when they're all coming out, you can see them straight away. They're bypassing the smoking and they're going straight to the vape."

Last month the council said more than 1,500 illegal and potentially dangerous vapes were surrendered by traders, with 20 premises caught selling unauthorised products in six months - a haul equating to more than 6.5 million e-cigarette puffs - some carrying liquid over the legal limits and without the right warnings. The council says they have made seizures from a variety of small shops and independent premises, with traders sometimes stocking them in the belief they are genuine or legal.

Cllr Stephenson said: "The idea is to get people addicted to them, and some of them are way over what you should have. Some have been found in this area with up to 10,000 puffs in a vape.

"It's probably grown in the last couple of years. We're constantly seizing illegal vapes."

Even when it comes to legal sales, she is lobbying MPs for tougher rules, which she would like to see on a par with cigarettes, including a central register for outlets. She said: "The restrictions on selling vapes aren't what they should be, in my opinion.

"There are restrictions on cigarettes - plain packaging, behind a cover, and you buy them at the counter. If you look at vapes you can go into any of the big stores and they're just there in front on you.

"Sometimes you'll find the vapes stacked up next to sweets. It sort of lowers the mindset on what exactly it is you're buying.

"You're still supposed to be 18 to be able to buy them but you don't have to go to the counter and ask for them, you can shove them in the basket when you're walking around the supermarket.

"My ideal outcome would be the same restrictions we have on cigarettes. Plain packaging, behind screens, the warnings quite clear, removal of all flavours."

She has a strong message to parents: "There's nicotine in these, they are addictive. It is illegal to purchase them for people under 18.

"As a grandmother and a great-grandmother it worries me," she said, pointing to the lack of messages warning of the dangers of smoking decades ago.

"That's the same message that's coming out here only a lot louder. These are designed to get you addicted to them so that you buy more and more and more, but in this case they are aimed at children."

And the price points are also much lower, with disposable e-cigarettes selling for as little as £4 or three for £10, said Cllr Stephenson.

"It's a lot cheaper to vape than it is to smoke. The genuine ones that were designed to help people come off cigarettes are useful, though the one thing we don't know about vapes is long-term effects."

Disposing of vapes brings its own problems, and the council advises people to return their used vapes to where they bought them, where sellers are obliged to have them recycled She said: "In Stockton we send ours to a recycling centre.

The centre we use dismantles them and recycles the parts. They have lithium batteries in them. Just throwing them away is dangerous, if you send them to crushers or burners.

"We know they can explode. You can see them just thrown on the floor."

Anyone with concerns about illegal vaping products can contact the council's trading standards team on 01642 526560 or email [email protected].