Aukati Tupeka Aotearoa Supports Calls To Reduce Vape Product Availability

The Aukati Tupeka Aotearoa (ATA), a national network of public health experts, endorses Vape-Free Kids NZ’s petition calling on Parliament to develop policies that will protect tamariki from the harms of vaping. The petition was presented to Dr Tracey McLellan, Chair of the Health Select Committee and MP for Banks Peninsula on the front lawn at Parliament Grounds on Wednesday, 16 August 2023. The event aims to highlight tamariki and rangatahi’s right to be protected from products designed to attract and addict them.

“Aotearoa New Zealand has shown extraordinary leadership and reduced smoking prevalence among young people to low levels. We need to see the same commitment to reducing vaping prevalence, which threatens the wellbeing of our rangatahi,” ATA Chairperson Martin Witt says.

Currently vaping products are available in around 1,000 specialist R18 stores but limited flavours remain on sale in approximately 6,000 dairies, supermarkets, and fuel stations - all readily accessible by young people.

ATA member and Manager of Takiri mai te Ata Regional Stop Smoking Service Catherine Manning says that as a community we have a responsibility to protect our future leaders.

“The #HASHTAGS a rangatahi group from Wainuiomata have pleaded in previous Health Select Committee hearings for tamariki and rangatahi to be protected so they do not inherit the addiction of nicotine that tobacco products have imposed on past generations, and we need to listen to these young people, who are our future leaders,” Manning says.

“There are currently far more vape retail outlets in our community than was ever the case for tobacco retail outlets and there seems to be no limit on the number of vape retail outlets able to set up business in our communities,” she says.

“This situation is normalising vape products and creating wider access for tamariki and rangatahi, resulting in them being harmed at alarming rates,” Manning says.

ATA member Professor Janet Hoek, who co-directs the ASPIRE Aotearoa Centre at the University of Otago, is calling for the Government to implement a comprehensive plan to combat youth vaping drawing on the same principles that saw dramatic reductions in youth smoking, including reducing the appeal, availability, and addictiveness of vaping products.

ATA feels encouraged that the Government has signalled its plans to act and suggests future policy ban all disposable vapes, end the sale of vaping products by generic retailers, apply proximity limits retrospectively and introduce density limits, including a sinking lid policy.

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