Once upon a time, a crafty fag behind the bike sheds was the mark of a teenage rebel. But not any more, which is why the vast majority of British 15-year-olds will be singularly unbothered about becoming the last generation legally allowed to buy cigarettes.
A princely 3% of them smoke, a habit now widely regarded as for old people. One in five girls that age, however, use candy-coloured, sweet-flavoured vapes. They’re cheaper, just as easily bought underage, and don’t make your hair smell horrible. So why persevere with raspy throats and ash on the carpet when they can get a nicotine fix that tastes of bubblegum or banana, from a device dinky enough to hide in a school blazer pocket? (The patronising old marketing advice to “shrink it and pink it” – create a handbag-sized, pastel version – if you want to sell to women could have been designed for the vape market, where young women now outnumber men; the reverse was true of tobacco.)
