Will the latest vaping reforms find the right balance and what will they mean for recreational vapers?

The Australian Government announced a major crackdown on vaping in May and will ban the importation of non-prescription vaping products, including those not containing nicotine. The latest regulations – aimed at tackling youth vaping – also include restricting flavours and colours, introducing pharmaceutical-like packaging, reducing nicotine concentrations, and banning all single-use, disposable vapes. Professor Coral Gartner, from UQ's School of Public Health, analyses the potential effectiveness of these latest regulations and what the crackdown means for recreational vapers.

Open any news source and it seems there is another alarming headline about a youth vaping ‘crisis’ or ‘epidemic’.

The stories include reports of students being suspended or expelled for vaping, children becoming schoolyard ‘dealers’, school toilets being installed with ‘vape detectors’ or remaining locked to prevent students using them for vaping, and discussion of new ‘open-air’ toilets to allow greater monitoring of students using these facilities.

Is Australia really facing a youth vaping 'crisis’?

While there is no doubt from anecdotal reports that some students are bringing vapes to school and some are also developing behavioural issues – such as addiction to nicotine via using these illicitly supplied products – there is little quality data available to determine the actual size of the problem. The most accurate data is likely to be the 2022 Australian School Students Survey on Alcohol and Drugs, but the results aren’t expected to be available until 2024.

The data available indicates that while vaping has likely increased among Australian students, it is likely to still be a minority of students using these products. For example, the Generation Vape study, which surveyed 721 youths aged 14-17 years old living in New South Wales, observed 80% of the sample reported no current vaping, while 4% usually vaped on 20 or more days per month. This figure (20% vaping at least monthly) is not any lower than the prevalence reported in other countries with more liberal regulatory regimes for nicotine vaping products. For example, 14% of high school students in the US vaped in the past month in 2022, 18% of New Zealand Year 10 students vaped at least monthly in 2022, and 13% of Canadian youth aged 15-19 years vaped in the past month in 2021.

There is genuine uncertainty about the best way to protect young people from using vaping products. However, many of the responses to the issue of youth vaping have the potential to cause great harms to the young people involved. For example, excluding students from school can lead to them disengaging from their education and ironically may escalate their substance use. Installing vape detectors are likely a waste of precious school funds that could be better spent on general educational resources for students, or invested in school nurses or counsellors. Locking toilet blocks has reportedly led to some students dehydrating themselves rather than risk being ‘caught short’ without access to a toilet. While one-off school presentations about vaping can reinforce an incorrect image that ‘everyone is doing it’ and spark curiosity.

The detailed media stories that include photos of products, interesting product descriptions, advice on which products can be easily hidden from teachers, price lists, where products can be purchased and the strong message that ‘many children’ are vaping in school may also be contributing to young people’s curiosity about vaping and making vaping appear to be a normal activity. Media standards for responsible reporting of youth vaping are badly needed.

So, can I still vape to help me quit smoking?

The best option from a health (and financial) perspective is to only use vaping for a limited time to assist stopping smoking and then to stop vaping once able to do so without returning to smoking. The latest Cochrane Systematic Review concluded that there is high‐certainty evidence that nicotine vaping is more effective than the use of current nicotine replacement therapy products for smoking cessation. However, people using this option should also be aware that vaping carries a greater risk of addiction and so some people may also require support to transition off vaping.

Approved nicotine replacement therapy products (patches, gum, lozenges, mouth sprays and inhalators) are likely to help, if the person is experiencing nicotine withdrawal symptoms when they try to stop vaping. Hence, for someone who is trying to quit smoking, having a plan to use multiple products at different stages in the quitting process may give the best chance of long-term quit success (such as vaping products as a first step and then nicotine replacement therapy as a second stage). Quitline counsellors can also assist with advice on how to manage withdrawal symptoms associated with stopping smoking or vaping.  

 Conclusion

Will these regulatory reforms be effective at preventing youth vaping? They should decrease general availability, and therefore ease of access to vaping products. However, the success of these measures will depend on whether illicit vaping products can be effectively detected and prevented from entering Australia, which may remain a substantial challenge requiring significant resources.

NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame

The NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts to develop the evidence base for tobacco endgame strategies and identify the most promising policies that could end the cigarette epidemic in Australia, and beyond.