Schools are being regularly evacuated as fire alarms are being triggered by students vaping in toilets, MPs were told today.
Headteacher Laranya Caslin said she has been forced to change smoke alarms to heat alarms in an attempt to stop them from going off as pupils sit their GCSE or A-level exams.
Ms Caslin, who is the principal of St George's Academy in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, said approximately 25% of students at her school are vaping with peer pressure "a significant issue".
And she said "the level of addiction we’re seeing is perhaps higher than it would have been among smokers", as she recalled smokers having sneaked a cigarette at the back of the field at break time whereas students are now making excuses to go to the toilet to vape during lessons.
Explaining the impacts of vaping to MPs on the Commons health committee, Ms Caslin said: “One example which is not directly linked to health but is impacting education is children vaping in toilets and setting off the fire alarm so we’re having to interrupt learning on a regular basis to all go out.
“I had two toilets that I knew students were vaping in that I was monitoring really closely and I became really concerned about interruptions to the exam season so I had to change smoke sensors to heat sensors really quickly to prevent us being in and out while students were sitting GCSEs and A-levels so the ramifications are quite broad in an education setting.”
The committee also heard evidence that children with asthma can’t use the toilets at school because of kids vaping in them which could be having very real health impacts such as increased risk of Urinary Tract Infections or problems with continence in the long run.
“We really need to have some more long term evidence before we can say these are safe. We don’t want to wait we want to band them now,” she said.
Ms Caslin also said flavours and branding that appeal to kids needed to be tackled, adding: “Some of them read like a sweet shop - gummy bear, slushy, that kind of thing, unicorn milk, unicorn frappe, it’s clearly pitched at, in my view, a younger audience.”
“What does concern me is the rate of increase of teenagers taking up vaping. And many of these lovely lovely students who I don’t think would ever dream of smoking - you know, going and having a sneaky cigarette, they wouldn’t do that - but they’ve been drawn into vaping much more easily because it’s perceived to be safe and because of the chat about the flavours and being in and being able to be part of these peer to peer conversations,” she added.
Another crucial issues she raised was children - who cannot legally buy vapes - were getting vapes through a “mixture of routes”.
“A worry for me is youngsters who aren’t able to go into a reputable shop and buy a regulated vape are in my view more likely therefore to buy a vape from somewhere where they don’t know its origin so they’re a little bit more at risk in that regard of a vape containing toxic, flammable, carcinogenic substances,” she said.
Ms Caslin told the story of one parent who confiscated five vapes from their child’s bedroom and after handing them to police for analysis, they were found to contain nine different harmful chemicals including Trichloroethylene, which can cause serious health effects.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, emphasised: “Action is needed and it’s needed now.”
She called for a £5 excise tax to be put on disposable vapes to make them less affordable to children and to also bring them under the excise regime which allows authorities and border force to seize illegal vapes coming into the country.
“Prohibit branding that appeals to children… and prohibit promotion of E-cigarettes in shops, put them out of sight and out of reach of children,” she added.
Dr Helen Stewart, officer for health improvement at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, emphasised her support for a ban on disposable vapes as they make up 70% of vapes used by kids.
“Removing them as an option is a much quicker, easier, straightforward way for protecting the health of children,” she said.
The committee also heard from industry representatives, including John Dunne, director general of the UK Vaping Industry Association, who said “very few trading standards groups are implementing fines” for selling vapes to kids.
He said: “We want to see all vape retailers and distributors licensed to be able to sell these products and that licensing has to include robust age verification processes, but also has to include that they only stock legitimate licensed products.
"These, we think, are reasonable things for the industry to do. If the industry isn’t going to reject to it I don’t see why the government can’t do it.”
Mr Dunne said the government should look to Ireland, which is set to bring in new laws that could see retailers caught selling vapes to underage teens facing fines of up to €4,000 or up to six months in jail.
He also said the Advertising Standards Authority is due to bring out some some guidance next month, adding: "We feel there’s a lot more that can be done around the use of social media, specifically TikTok which has a really low age demographic.”
Marcus Saxton, Chairman, Independent British Vape Trade Association, said their estimates show roughly two-thirds of the vape market is made up by “the black or illicit market”
Regulation needs to be done in the right way as if not it will “allow that market to thrive”, he said.
“Unfortunately there is much growing area… that is unfortunately capitalising commercially on the opportunity to flout all the good work that’s gone on and the regulation that exists and that’s the area that we must target not at the expense of those that are doing exactly what they should do, that is helping this country eradicate smoking,” he added.
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