Teen vaping is new pandemic, warns Bolton head teacher

• Vaping and the use of e-cigarettes among teenagers has become a “new pandemic”.
• And the government has implemented rules to prevent minors from using them.
• The government has created laws to protect children from vaping.

Vaping and the use of e-cigarettes among teenagers has become a “new pandemic”, a Bolton head teacher has warned.

Tony McCabe, who oversees Saint Joseph’s RC High School in Bolton, said staff had witnessed a spike in young people “acquiring vapes through the underground market”.

He claimed that the risks of vaping should be made more widely known and that his students were “no different” from kids in the UK.

To safeguard minors and “prevent them from vaping,” the government claimed to have implemented rules.

According to the most recent data, reported e-cigarette use among 11 to 15-year-olds in England has increased to 9%.

Significantly, the percentage of 15-year-old females who vape has increased from 10% in 2018 to 21% in 2021.

According to NHS recommendations, devices that allow users to vape nicotine rather than smoke it can aid adults in quitting their smoking habits, but the vapor may still include trace levels of substances, including nicotine.

Despite the fact that vaping is thought to be less dangerous than smoking cigarettes, long-term repercussions are still unknown.

Some students from the Bolton school claimed that even though it is illegal to offer vapes to those under 18, it is now difficult to find someone who does not use one.

Grace, aged 15, said it was “a regular thing to see”.

“Chances are you will bump into someone at the shop vaping,” she said.

Her classmate Benedict, 16, said a year ago, it was still “shocking” to see someone vaping, “but it’s very common now and peculiar not to vape”.

Anna, 16, said most of those she knew who vaped did not see a problem with it because “they’re not ill, they’ve not got cancer, so they’re not actually scared yet”.

She added that when someone was told off by a teacher for vaping, “it’s even more fun to do, because that makes it more like a game”.

Mr. McCabe said the school was “finding increasing numbers of young people acquiring vapes from the black market”.

However, he said the problem was not unique to his school, as “children in this area are no different than children all over the country”.

“There is a problem nationally,” he said.

“It’s a new pandemic that will grow unless we make enough noise… to make sure that young people are not at the center of that market.”

Doctors have said that e-cigarette companies are preying on children with their colorful packaging, exotic flavors, and alluring names.

Co-Ordinator of Trade Standards Kate Pike reported that her colleagues had “often” discovered retailers selling vapes to minors.

“Unfortunately, there are a lot of products coming into the country at the moment which do not comply with the regulations,” she said.

“That’s not to say they are in any way dangerous… but they’re illegal and they shouldn’t be sold.”

Mr. McCabe said the pressures to fit in were “far greater than they have ever been before” and parents should not “assume that their child would know better”.

He said that he had installed sensors in the restrooms to detect devices as a result of the problem of students using the restrooms more frequently to vape.

He continued by saying that advertisements for vape products placed on school buses were harmful and that parents, lawmakers, and other authorities should inform kids about the dangers.

The government has “made it plain that children should not use vapes and have created laws to prevent kids from vaping,” a spokeswoman of the Department of Health and Social Services said in a statement.

“The law protects children from vapes through restricting sales to over 18s only, limiting nicotine content, refill bottle and tank sizes, labelling requirements, and through advertising restrictions,” they said.

“Adverts for vapes and their components are prohibited from featuring anything likely to be of particular appeal to people under the age of 18, such as characters or celebrities they would be familiar with.”

They continued by saying that the agency was looking into a number of solutions to curb the rising rate of youth vaping.

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