Children will simply start smoking if vaporizers are banned

Has anyone in government ever asked a teenager what they would do if vaping were made illegal? It seems definitely not if you read the work of Caitlin Notley, professor of addiction studies at the University of East Anglia.

“It is extremely important that we talk to young people about their views on vaping, because they can inform us about the unintended consequences of the ban,” says Prof. Notley. “Possibility that young people will start smoking after a complete ban on disposable vaporizers is real and a big concern for us.”

After the job interview group of people aged 16 to 20 about their experiences with vaping and smoking for a study published in the summer, Professor Notley and her team concluded that a hard ban on disposable vaporizers would likely create a dangerous black market devices in the hands of more children and encourage some to smoke cigarettes instead.

Cheap disposable vaporizers have already taken over schools, with many teachers confiscating Elf Bars in classrooms and school staff “installing cameras and vape detectors in restrooms.”

A ban cannot undo this nicotine has already become widely available‘E’ to a generation of young people, and many teenagers are now addicted to nicotine, which will be difficult to break without the right support, says Professor Notley.

“The ban will be a great experiment,” he adds. “We don’t know what exactly will happen until it’s tried, but any ban on something dangerous has unintended consequences.”

Here’s why a hard ban on disposable vapes may do more harm than good – and may not create a smoke-free generation after all.

Vape companies are way ahead of the competition

The ban on single-use vaping, due to come into force from June, is intended to protect young people from the lure of fun, colorful and cheap devices with fruity flavors that are “designed to attract children’s attention”, says Professor Notley.

The logic behind this is that the bulky and expensive rechargeable vaporizers used by many adults to quit smoking will not appeal to children or be as easily accessible to them.

However, considering the months it took to introduce the regulations constituting the basis for the ban, “many companies anticipated this situation,” explains Prof. Notley.

Many companies “now produce rechargeable or refillable vaporizers that are cheap and readily available and that look very similar to the devices young people use today, but they will not be banned because they are not covered by specific regulations.”

Some of the young people involved in Prof.’s research. Notley and her team “are already using these devices, and the products will evolve as the ban goes into effect, so we don’t necessarily know what will come to market.”

Many teenagers will also treat battery-powered devices “as disposable” due to their appearance.

Some children will have the opportunity to use illegal vaporizers

As Professor Notley notes, “it is already illegal to sell vapes to anyone under 18,” and yet children and teenagers still manage to get their hands on them. In 2023 one in five people under 18 years of age have tried vaping, with more than one in 10 people vaping at least once or twice a week.

Young people often buy disposable vaporizers from unscrupulous corner stores or from older friends who buy vaporizers in bulk to sell, explains Professor Notley.

Then there is the pre-existing “black market of vaporizers imported from abroad, which are cheap and quite easily available, but are not regulated in the same way,” says Prof. Notley.

“If you ban something, there is a risk that people will use illegal products that are more harmful, whereas when something is legal, you can regulate it and control it more tightly.”

Moreover, “we know that some children are already using these illegal products, and some of my work has been with elementary-aged children to create guidelines on how to recognize one of these more dangerous devices.”

Other young people will start smoking – because they are addicted to nicotine

While fashion and social group patterns are important reasons why young people start vaping – as well as the comforting “behavioral aspect of vaping, which involves regular hand-to-mouth movements,” says Professor Notley – this alone does not explain why people continue to vape after trying it.

Like adults, teenagers become addicted to nicotine, sometimes within weeks or just days of occasionally using e-cigarettes or cigarettes.

“Young people who vape regularly probably have it nicotine addictionand we need to find ways to support them and help them not stop smoking,” says Professor Notley. Like illegal vapes, “illicit tobacco products are a huge problem, and young people are often quite smart and know how to get their hands on cigarettes.”

Teenagers don’t always understand that cigarettes are dangerous

It may seem unbelievable to anyone who grew up watching advertisements about the dangers of smoking, but the anti-cigarette messages that today’s teenagers receive are typically much weaker than older people themselves might remember.

“This is probably due to the belief that as smoking levels decline in the population we believe that young people taking up smoking is no longer something we need to stop smoking, so investment in these media campaigns designed to discourage people from smoking has been withdrawn. ” says Professor Notley.

“Teenagers may not have seen these ads, but they’ve definitely heard the horror stories about them Vapes exploding in your pockets”

All this increases the likelihood that children addicted to nicotine will start smoking cigarettes.

Of course, vaping is not without risks – “no one would want to tell teenagers that vaping is safe,” says Professor Notley – but because of the information they receive online and sometimes at school, “young people may be confused about the relative harm of smoking cigarettes compared to vaping.”

The ban demonizes nicotine, not tobacco

While no one would want their child to vape, it would be wrong to assume that vaping is a more dangerous pastime than smoking.

Nicotine is addictive, but it is not carcinogenic in itself. Meanwhile, in the case of cigarettes, “we know that in the case of tobacco, the damage comes from inhaling burnt tobacco smoke and that the damage is actually caused by the chemical changes associated with it.”

“When inhaled, the average tobacco cigarette contains over 7,000 different chemicals, of which at least 70 various carcinogenswhich, according to many years of research, directly cause cancer,” says Prof. Notley.

Again, because disposable vapes are still so new, there hasn’t been enough time for long-term research that takes into account the impact of regularly using vapes over many decades – so the safest bet is not to use any of them. Inhaling nicotine from a vape pen can also raise your blood pressure and damage lung tissue.

But disposable vapes reduce the combustion associated with smoking, and while the jury is still out on how safe the flavoring chemicals in various vaporizers are, and illegal vapes may contain more worrying chemicals, “vaping should be much less harmful.”

Smoking will be normalized again

Before the advent of disposable vapes, the main way of consuming nicotine in the UK was by smoking cigarettes. Currently, about 14 percent of adults smoke and about 9 percent of adults vape, with about half of vapers being former smokers. In 2016, 19 percent of adults in the UK smoked and around 6 percent vaped.

In SwedenMeanwhile, snus – tobacco pouches that people place between their gums and mouth – is the most common form of nicotine use. As a result, “Smoking levels are incredibly low in Sweden because cultural norms have changed there.”

Only 6 percent of the Swedish population smokes cigarettes every day, with young people being the least likely to smoke.

While snus has been associated with health problems – regular use has been associated with an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease – regular consumption of snus has also been proven to be safer than cigarettes.

So, re-normalizing smoking by banning disposable vaporizers could result in more people suffering from the ill health effects of regular cigarette smoking.

Their health will also suffer in adulthood

The government’s Tobacco and Vaporizers Act may ban the sale of cigarettes and vaporizers to anyone under 15 years of age by the end of this year.

However, today’s 16-17-year-olds will be able to buy vaporizers or reusable cigarettes after they turn 18, and especially young women over 18 “are smoking tobacco in greater numbers than previously observed”, prof. says Notley.

Adults who smoke are advised to switch to vaping, “and many of the flavors available in disposable vaporizers that are attractive to children are also attractive to adults who want to quit smoking,” he explains.

While it is important to design vaporizers so that they do not appeal to children, a ban – with all its potential side effects – may not be necessary to prevent this. “Just calling something blueberry flavored instead of ‘frozen blueberry’ might be enough to make it OK for adults, but would be less appealing to children,” adds Professor Notley.