Young people vaping has not only hit the headlines in recent months, but also continues to top the list of concerns schools have been reporting to us as a . Media talk of an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers taking up vaping has also exposed the worrying numbers of newsagents and corner shops across the land selling unregulated – and sometimes very strong – vapes to underage youngsters. But vaping is also a good news story. For adult smokers, it’s now the most popular replacement for nicotine, enabling huge numbers to give up the habit of burning and inhaling tobacco and the many multitudes of health harms that brings. But as smoking rates fall year on year, the worry is whether we’re seeing a burgeoning generation of adolescent nicotine addicts in our homes, schools and colleges.
Messages around vaping are mixed and confusing, and difficult for both parents and teachers to manage for children and young people – especially when some of the risk lies in not yet knowing exactly what the risks might be. Vaping was only developed two decades ago, and didn’t arrive in the UK until 2007, so there isn’t yet any research on the longer-term harms of inhaling the many different chemicals involved. Growing concerns among some in the medical profession have led to organisations strongly committed to reducing adult smoking rates, including and the , striking a note of caution that vaping is not a risk-free option. And it’s because of concerns in particular for adolescent health that the World Health Organisation has taken an even stronger stance and stated: ‘E-cigarettes are harmful to health and are not safe’.
But the public health message that vaping is better than smoking – as far as we know – is important. Concerns about non-smoking teens taking up vaping are balanced with worries that young people will heed all the warnings about vaping and turn back to smoking, and all the good work of many decades will be undone. So, what should we do?
Don’t panic (or at least not out loud)
Wherever we go for our facts and figures, it’s clear the numbers of young people vaping are going up, but it’s far from epidemic proportions – yet. According to the most recent data from (Action on Smoking and Health), numbers of young people vaping have risen – particularly in the last year – but overall they are still relatively low, at least when it comes to younger teens (ASH, 2022). Only around one in ten 11 to 15-year-olds had tried vaping, and of those, only 4 per cent currently did so, and numbers are even lower in those who have never smoked. When it comes to older teens and young adults, the numbers become much higher, however. The Mix (2022) found the proportion of 16 to 25-year-olds vaping had shot up in just a year, from 15 per cent in 2021 to 44 per cent a year later.
We do need to keep an eye on the direction of travel the numbers take, but we also need to be careful of normalising negative behaviour if we worry too loudly about this. When the ASH data came out in the summer, we started asking 13 to 15-year-olds in workshops in schools how many of their peers they thought had ever vaped, and most of them thought that most of them had, whereas in fact the opposite was the case. The more normal any of us think a behaviour is, the more likely we are to do it ourselves, and panicking risks a counterproductive effect. An emphasis on the positive choices of the majority can have a protective effect on risk taking and decision-making.
Understand their motivation
Unsurprisingly, ASH found the biggest reason by far was ‘to give it a try’ (65 per cent), followed by ‘joining in with others’, but that was a long way behind at only around one in ten. Curiosity is the main motivation for first trying any substance, at any age. While so much good work has been done to make cigarettes as inaccessible and visually unappealing as possible, vaping is all around us. Products are visible on most high streets, in attractive packaging, bright colours and enticing flavours, such as cotton candy ice and pink lemonade. As well as seeing adverts (where they’re still allowed) in real life, teenagers may well be seeing vaping on social media, particularly TikTok, where videos of vaping tricks and challenges do the rounds rapidly. And a big game-changer for young people has been disposable vapes, which have taken over the young people’s market. Not only are they easy to get hold of, and simple to use, but a standard 600 puff disposable vape is equivalent in nicotine to a pack of twenty cigarettes, at half the price. As well as Elf or Geek Bars (currently the most popular brands), vaping devices come in many and various shapes and forms, appearing like memory sticks, pens, even fidget spinners (the giveaway is that they’ll smell strong, and probably very sweet).
Curiosity is an important and powerful trait in a teen, but this needs to be tempered by a good understanding of the potential risks, and the skills to manage these safely, especially with their friends. Ongoing conversations, at home and at school, are where this will best happen.
Understand the risks
Although there’s much we don’t yet know, what we do know is that almost all vapes contain nicotine, which is highly addictive, and never more so than in adolescence. Between the ages of around ten and the mid-twenties, the brain is going through a critical period of change, which makes it more vulnerable to addiction, and nicotine is a more addictive substance than many others, which is what makes smoking a habit that’s so hard to kick. There is also some evidence that addiction to any substance at this vulnerable stage of life can ‘prime’ the brain to be more likely to become addicted to others.
Addiction creeps up on a person, often without them realising it. If someone’s tried to cut down or stop but hasn’t been able to, if they get anxious at the thought of going a day without vaping, if they find they’re vaping more to get the same effect, if they’re starting to lose interest in other things or people that used to matter, or they get withdrawal symptoms when they don’t vape, then they may have lost some control. If this is the case, then that young person may need the support of a trusted adult, or online advice, to reduce and to stop their use (see below).
What about the environment?
If the risks of addiction or concerns of professionals about the longer-term harms don’t seem to be hitting home, the impact on the world around them may make a difference to the decisions of the young people in your lives. Young people very much lead the way in their passionate commitment to tackling climate change, and have done so much work to reduce the amount of single-use plastic products in our lives, but that is exactly what disposable vapes are. They also contain lithium and copper, precious minerals that are being wasted, and in being discarded the lithium in the batteries risks contaminating the environment. Environmental non-profit Material Focus estimated over 1.3 million disposable vapes were thrown away each week in the course of a year, equating to 10 tonnes of lithium lost.
What next?
Smokefree.gov is a US government site which has , with some useful self-help advice for anyone wanting to stop.
For schools, we’ve produced a mini-resource pack which is free to download from , consisting of recorded assemblies for Years 9 to 10 and 11 to 12, a briefing for staff and lesson activities for follow-up.
For parents, both of my books are written to help out with conversations at home, ‘’ (Sheldon Press, 2021) focusing specifically on young people, drugs and decisions, and ‘’ (Sheldon Press, 2022) more broadly on how to make both those everyday and more difficult conversations work best.
Fiona Spargo-Mabbs OBE is the Director and Founder of drug education charity