Health Coalition Aotearoa Urges Stronger Vaping Legislation To Protect Young People

Health Coalition Aotearoa shares widely reported concerns from health and educational leaders about skyrocketing rates of vaping among school children and youth.

New Zealand’s youth vaping rates are much higher than Australia’s, where the sale of vapes containing nicotine has been illegal for years and now only legally available on prescription from pharmacies. But with online marketing and sales to minors very hard to control, youth vaping is also becoming a major headache in Australian schools, as reported in recent NZ media.

"We welcome Health Minister Verrall’s acknowledgement that the balance on vaping policy is wrong at present" says HCA Smokefree Advisory Group representative Professor Janet Hoek. "We are pleased that the Minister is taking steps to address this imbalance through regulations currently being finalised by the Ministry of Health.

"We acknowledge that people who smoke and who have not been able to stop smoking using approved cessation approaches could benefit if they switch completely to vaping. New measures making smoked tobacco non-addictive and less available mean it is important that people who smoke can access alternative nicotine sources.

The government’s smokefree policies since 2018 have supported adults wishing to stop smoking through vaping, but without adequately protecting young people from aggressive industry marketing and easy access to these very addictive products. In recent years, specialist vape shops (SVRs) within dairies close to schools and in low-income areas have proliferated; the Vaping Regulatory Authority has now approved 1200 Specialist Vape Retailers, many of which are tightly clustered in shopping areas. Staff working in these outlets are not required to have formal training in supporting people to switch from smoking to vaping, ostensibly a key function of SVRs.

The HCA smokefree expert group argued for the following in our submission on the new regulations:

• Strengthening the approvals process for specialist vape retailers (SVRs), to prevent convenience stores from gaining approval.
• SVR approval to include consideration of proximity to schools, kura kaupapa, ECE centres, kohanga reo and other venues where children and youth gather.
• Requiring a ‘fit and proper person’ test for all vape retailers.
• Requiring SVRs to apply robust age verification processes in sales to young people and all online sales and delivery.
• Setting minimum prices for disposable vapes, with subsidised products available through smoking cessation services.
• Reducing the upper limit of nicotine for vaping products (currently 50mg/mL) to that of the European Union and UK - 20mg/mL across all vaping products .
• Introducing a ‘nicotine-free’ generation policy.

Health Coalition Aotearoa also support a pharmacy-supply model, as argued for by General Practice New Zealand chair Dr Bryan Betty, once the number of specialist outlets falls below 100 and vaping products are no longer sold by general retailers.

It appears that most public health units have not had capacity to monitor and enforce R18 restrictions in recent years and additional funding is needed to ensure high compliance.

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