The explosion of ‘Recreational Vaping’ means planned regulation will fail the group most likely to be harmed by disposable vapes
‘Recreational vaping’ among 18–25 year olds overlooked by government and activists
The understandable focus of the government and others on reducing the accessibility of vapes to under 18’s, while actively promoting e-cigarettes to help people stop smoking, overlooks the explosion of ‘recreational vaping’ among 18–25 year olds, with potentially serious consequences for their health, says responsible innovation not-for-profit SocietyInside.
“Vaping is nothing to do with smoking. It’s a lifestyle thing, a youth thing. A vape is sort of like an accessory”
22 year old male — personal interview, SocietyInside scoping study, May 2023.
“The findings of our scoping study among young adults shows that ‘recreational vaping’, particularly among the majority of users who have never smoked, shows very different drivers and motivations for 18–24 year olds than those of children and smokers”, explains Director Hilary Sutcliffe, “Most research to date has been broad and quantitative, there is no qualitative and ethnographic research about ‘recreational vaping’ as a phenomenon and so proposed regulations will fail to take into consideration the appropriate measures to prevent this becoming public health disaster for these young adults.
“As a matter of urgency, the development of the regulation should be led by a broad and open societal debate, underpinned by better research, particularly involving this group. We need an open honest discussion about the appropriate role of vaping in the UK and how best to balance the urgent need to help smokers quit, with the rise of vapes as legal destination lifestyle products with increasingly visible negative public health effects on young people.
Sutcliffe concludes: “We cannot let the market dictate the health of our young people, we must learn the lessons of smoking, social media, opioids, gambling and other products of the ‘addiction economy’ and stop these harms in their tracks, whilst also incentivising and supporting those who want to quit smoking with the appropriate help and technologies.”
Recreational vaping is now a normal social activity for 18–24's
Scoping research to assess the need for a larger study by SocietyInside’s Joe Woof, aged 22, (as part of a Master’s dissertation in Science Communication at UCL) shows that recreational vaping has become a normal social activity for many. “The barrier to having a cigarette in public is huge, for a disposable vape there is no barrier. Vapes are ubiquitous, there is no social stigma to using them and they are now used everywhere, including indoors in virtually every social setting. Using and sharing vapes with different flavours is totally acceptable, even, perhaps especially, for those who wouldn’t normally buy one themselves. They are totally legal for this age group and can be easily purchased on and offline, including recently inside bars and clubs. In just over two years, disposable vapes have become a completely normal part of the culture of young adults.”
“Basically I reach for my vape before I open my eyes in the morning, before I even look at my phone and it’s the last thing I touch before I go to sleep, and when I wake up in the night. There is pretty much nowhere that I can’t vape .”
21 year old male — personal interview, SocietyInside scoping study, June 2023.
“It is essential that the social context and motivations of young adults are better understood and the potential effects of vapes on their health and mental health are considered separately to the needs of smokers when deciding what to do about vapes” concluded Woof. “My small scoping study (with 28 21–23 year olds) indicated that many young people themselves are beginning to wish the choice was taken out of their hands and that the government would do more to restrict their use.
“Until I did this research I was a vaper myself. Finding out about how companies deliberately try to addict us and hearing about young people harmed, even dying from using vapes, caused me to quit. Eventually”
Beware behavioural science and vape product design and marketing
The original e-cigarette was a large, fiddly, device which, quite rightly, was designed using cutting-edge behavioural science to help smokers quit cigarettes. “They offer a familiar physical sensation: allowing users to replicate smoking habits (for example, stepping outside, holding something in their hand, inhaling and exhaling a vapour)” explained the UK Behavioural Insights Team, explaining the importance of behavioural science in e-cigarette product design.
But new small, brightly coloured products, with sweet fruity flavours and catchy names like Lost Mary and Elf Bar have changed all that. Using their own behavioural science, including sophisticated marketing via TikTok and Instagram, companies making these new vapes (e-cigarettes is what old people call them!) have deliberately created a new and much larger customer base for the sector as the new big thing for young adults.
Lessons from behavioural psychology mean that if, as proposed by the government, the bright colours of disposable vape packaging are to be banned, the companies producing them will use similar manipulative design techniques to target their largest legal customer base — young adults. Disposable vapes will be redesigned and re-marketed to reflect their specific purchasing triggers.
The government must therefore think more deeply about the measures, including the potential for banning disposable vapes altogether, to prevent this predictable process. We must learn from previous attempts to restrict flavours, where flavoured vape pods were banned, leading to the development of the current disposable vape products. Continuing this regulatory ‘whack-a-mole’ is not a viable option for this sector and a recognition of company marketing practices and a more innovative approach to restrict their incentives is needed.
“You buy cigarettes and the advertising says its going to kill you but with vapes it looks so nice and pretty like surely that’s completely fine, that’s why so many people get them. If it was bad, surely the government wouldn’t allow it?”
22 year old female —personal interview, SocietyInside scoping study, June 2023.
The many specific harms of disposable vapes underplayed
The importance of promoting vapes as an alternative to smoking, and so comparisons of resulting harms, can distract from research and evidence about harms of vaping in its own right, particularly to those who do not smoke.
The huge popularity of vapes, one could conclude, as have many in the media, is just a new craze, something young people will get bored of and get over. Except nicotine is one of the most addictive substances there is and quitting a nicotine habit is not easy. In addition to that there are significant additional harms emerging.
Public health epidemiologist Professor Emily Banks has conducted a meta study of research worldwide — Health Impacts of Electronic Cigarettes — that shows clear evidence that vaping does carry significant harms, particularly for non-smokers, children and young people. Her research shows the nicotine and or the chemicals used in the vapes can cause addiction, poisoning, trauma, burns, lung injury and illnesses, mental health issues, impairs the development of children and adolescents, affects reproduction, sleep, wound healing, and looks likely to cause neurological conditions and conditions of the mouth and throat - with long term studies needed to assess cardiovascular and carcinogenic risks which cannot be ruled out given the current use of the technology used in disposables over approximately 2 years.
Comparing recreational vaping with smoking is incorrect, “it should be compared with breathing” for non-smokers.
She went on to show that “there is also growing evidence of the effects of nicotine on the developing brain…with conclusive evidence that nicotine is one of most addictive substances that we know and we can see with these young people they are getting addicted. …We tend to trivialise addiction, but being addicted… to these products … is a very serious problem”.
Each vape contains the nicotine of 20 cigarettes, though there are none of the problems associated with the tobacco which accompanies cigarettes, there are additional concerns about the flavours, sweeteners and solvents which thought they are considered ‘generally recognised as safe’ by the US and UK. However, the studies have been about ingestion not inhalation leading to widespread concerns by health professionals. Furthermore concerns from outside the UK, particularly Australia and the US where 59 deaths have been reported, do not appear to be adequately reflected in UK government assesment or guidance.
“The medical profession was hoodwinked by the tobacco industry years ago and endorsed cigarettes and we are now endorsing vaping. As a colleague of mine has said: ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Sarah Brown, Consultant in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine Royal London Children’s Hospital
The new culture wars battleground — vaping — a deliberate distraction from focus on harms
Vaping has become the latest battleground in the culture wars demonstrates an expose by journalists from The Observer on 18th June 2023. Manufacturers and free market lobby groups are seeking to block UK regulation by inciting vapers to ‘stand up for their rights’ by opposing new vaping laws. Advertising and campaigns such as ‘We Vape UK’ on Facebook and Twitter which appear to be from ordinary members of the public are according to Observer’s research set up by the Adam Smith Institute with long running ties to the tobacco industry.
Advertisements also seek to undermine the World Health Organisation which has been vocal about the health risks of e-cigarettes — “Who are the men in dark suits trying to control your lives? #SayNoToWho!” Others feature devils, “top secret” files and show the WHO logo on puppet strings controlled by China and Russia”.
Comparisons with Alcopops in 1990s in which pre-mixed, fruity flavoured alcoholic drinks targeted at young people were voluntarily withdrawn due to pressure and reputational risk for large domesstic alcohol producers will not work here. However, it may prove difficult to provide similar reputational market incentives to the manufacturers of the UK’s leading vapes. It is difficult to track the company manufacturing the UK’s leading brands Lost Mary and Elf Bar but the Financial Times indicates they are own by the same Chinese company IMiracle Technologies distributed through HeavenGifts and Green Fun Alliance in the UK.
However it is encouraging to see Lawsuits in the US seem likely to bankrupt previous market leader Juul because of it’s marketing to children, and the Advertising Standards Agency upholding a a complaint from health charity ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) Scotland that profit-making companies like VPZ, (funded by tobacco company Phillip Morris) should not advertise themselves as ‘clinics’, or as giving ‘health advice’ as they have no trained staff to provide this guidance and are simply retailers of vapes.
Vapes are already an environmental catastrophe
The House of Commons study The Environmental impact of disposable vapes shows that in 2022, 5.4 million single use vapes are thrown away each month, incorporating 10 tonnes of lithium a year, equivalent to the batteries inside 1200 electric cars.
In recycling terms they are categorised as ‘hazardous waste’ and research by The Guardian found that the Local Government Association, which represents councils in England and Wales, have said that “single-use vapes such as Elf bars, Lost Mary and Juul were almost impossible to recycle. They are designed as one unit so batteries cannot be separated from the plastic.”
In general users of vapes are unaware of the harms of the disposables on the environment and issues with recycling. Councils are concerned that even when they are recycled the recovery of these substances may also cause dangers to those undertaking the recycling including fires in recycling centres.
According to the Guardian, local councils are calling on the Environment Agency to proactively enforce retailer duties on paying into a producer compliance scheme and reform of the producer responsibility scheme. A spokesperson for DEFRA proposed “we will consider what changes in legislation are needed to ensure the vaping sector foots the bill for the collection and treatment of their used products.”
In the SocietyInside scoping study young people were concerned about the environmental hazards of vapes where they knew about them, but awareness was low.
Conclusion: A new approach to regulation needed for vapes in the UK
SocietyInside Director Hilary Sutcliffe proposed that a new approach to regulating vapes is needed.
“As a matter of urgency, the development of the regulation should be led by a broad and open societal debate, underpinned by better research, particularly involving this 18–24 year old group. We need an open honest discusssion about the appropriate role of vaping in the UK and how best to balance the urgent need to help smokers quit, with the rise of vapes as legal destination lifestyle products, with increasingly visible negative public health effects on young people.
Sutcliffe concludes: “We cannot let the market dictate the health of our young people, we must learn the lessons of smoking, social media, opioids, gambling and other products of the ‘addiction economy’ and stop these harms in their tracks, whilst also incentivising and supporting those who want to quit smoking with the appropriate help and technologies.”
ENDS
To discuss this further with SocietyInside please contact
Hilary Sutcliffe on hilary@societyinside.com or Joe Woof on joe@societyinside.com
