Four years ago, I wrote a column in this newspaper warning about an epidemic of vaping among teenagers, outlining tough regulation. I could publish it again today because nothing has changed. Except the number of teens vaping has doubled. And tobacco firms have got smarter luring a new generation into the nicotine trap.
The Government has not intervened, at all, until very recently. The Prime Minister, nudged by the fact that his own daughters are soon teenagers and new research, has launched an ‘illicit vape enforcement squad’ (like something out of The Incredibles but less effective). He is banning free vape samples for children, because it is not presently illegal to hand out free e-cigarettes to children. Some oversight. And the Government has ordered a review into adding on-the-spot fines to retailers selling vapes to under-18s. Meanwhile, tobacco companies who own the biggest vaping brands are moving into action, delivering empty warnings that tougher regulation will drive them onto the black market. Really? This is nicotine not marijuana.
It is a hopelessly soft-touch response by the Government. We continue to sleepwalk around the problem. Paradoxically, we have the strongest regulation around smoking in Europe, and the weakest on e-cigarettes. The popularity of vaping is growing so fast among teenagers that “almost all will be doing it within five years if the trajectory continues”, one of our top lung specialists recently warned. Dr Mike McKean is the vice-president of policy for the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health and believes a generation could end up with long-term addiction and lung damage unless urgent action is taken. There is research that says vaping is a gateway drug (to smoking), and no single health authority has ever backed its use for non-smokers.
Type ‘vapes for sale’ into your search engine and bestsellers include mango peach watermelon; strawberry ice-cream; blueberry sour raspberry and watermelon bubble-gum. Do those feel orientated to adults?
My eldest was 14 in 2019 when he and his friends began (and they also smoked, from what I could tell). It was naughty and it was easy to attain vapes. With their slick, cool packaging they would fall out of pockets, tumble out of bags. While 18, he vaped consistently as he didn’t before. It became a problem in the last year and he has since quit totally.
Now my younger son and most of his friends are at it, aged 14. It’s an identical pattern. I find the vapes in pockets, down the side of his bed, especially when his friends are over. The excuse is always the same, “Oh, these don’t have any nicotine in them.” They always do. I throw them out, deliver a lecture.
There is, as yet, too little research available on the long-term effects on young lungs. Cheap illicit brands are found with lead and other banned particles. A school in Hampshire has today warned parents of children falling ill from what they think are illegal vapes. In 2019, vape companies like Juul were caught marketing to those under 18, in a deeply cynical move to attain market growth. The year before this young San Francisco start-up was valued at $38 billion. Six months ago, I sat at a dinner with the CEO of a global tobacco company, who shrugged that, yes, cigarette sales were down, but business was booming for their vaping products. The market is forecast to grow in the UK another £1.2 billion.
We’ve come a long way in tackling smoking in this country — far more dangerous than e-cigarettes to our health — but it wasn’t because of a rise in vaping products. Strict regulation, higher taxes, health campaigns, banning smoking in public indoor spaces, and a crackdown on marketing has done the trick. We should take similar safeguards with vapes. In my local store they are piled high on the front counter. The manager admits he is remunerated to ensure they are prominently placed.
Disposable vapes should be banned entirely, as these are favoured by teenagers — in 2022, 52.8 per cent of 11- to 18-year-olds used disposable vapes (they are cheaper). In Australia, e-cigarettes are only now attainable through a doctor. We can easily do the same here using pharmacists. It pushes the correct message — that vapes help give up smoking. It will stop them being marketed as cool products (with a heinously addictive substance inside) to get you spending. The only winners are tobacco companies. And the Treasury, in the short term.
Arts cuts are suffocating London’s cool
The creative and cultural industries generate about £42 billion and support one in six London jobs, while four out of five tourists, meanwhile, say culture is the reason they visit the capital. And yet last November Arts Council England reduced funding allocations here by £50 million — and a group of cross-party MPs agree that the consequences could be disastrous.
Visiting the ICA yesterday, and its charismatic director Bengi Unsal, the depth of the cuts are clear — 23 per cent of funding is gone. And this is an institution that supports younger artists across all forms of media.
Unsal is set on delivering new avenues to growth — more night-time events and digital offerings (70 live music gigs already this year), while also doubling down on fundraising activities, but with less resources to do so. It doesn’t make sense. Cuts deliver long-term damage to our creative economy.
I sympathise with both Kim and Kanye
Discussing what led to her divorce from Kanye West, Kim Kardashian has explained tearfully that she was exhausted from having to “clean up” the rapper’s outbursts — both on social media and behind the scenes. I met both at the Vogue Festival some years ago. And the differences between the then married couple were clear: far from being a diva, Kim was engaging and warm, an oasis of calm. He was jumpy, his conversation riddled with paranoia. It was obvious he was struggling with his mental health. She was trying to hold them together. He has since spiralled lower, his outbursts indefensible. But they both deserve some sympathy.
