Irish teens are vape crazy... we have to act to snuff out this menace

SOMETIMES, a chance remark can leave you gobsmacked.

A friend’s 16-year-old son casually informed me the other day that “nearly all” of his classmates vape.

As a parent, I hate to think of myself as an out-of-touch fuddy-duddy, but here was Exhibit A.

I was stunned. Just when we thought the biggest evils our teenagers faced were the familiar ones of drink and drugs, allied with those new-kids-on-the-block, phone addiction and porn, here was a not so golden oldie sneaking up on a whole new generation.

Nicotine - extracted from tobacco, and highly addictive. And just like they say about that other malignant force from our own childhoods - it hasn’t gone away, you know.

I had already heard a lot of evidence tbat vaping was rife among young people, but I never knew they had it this bad until that chance remark.

When you see the insidious way that vaping managed to hook its claws into a whole new generation of our children, while us oldies thought the nicotine menace had all but evaporated, you too will be shocked.

The odd thing is, vapes were originally conceived - or at least presented - as an aid to quitting smoking. In double quick time - thanks to some very intelligent and pervasive marketing - they have become the gateway into nicotine for so many of our young people who had never even started smoking in the first place.

How the hell did that happen?

Let’s get the science out of the way: vaping, or e-cigarettes (note the apparently environmentally-friendly name?) uses a battery to heat up a special liquid into an aerosol that users inhale.

The ‘e-juice’ (fancy!) that fills the cartridges usually contains nicotine, propylene glycol, flavourings and other chemicals.

Flavourings, you say?

Ah and here’s where vaping suddenly had a marketing tool.

What if you substitute plain old water vapour for a succession of cool-sounding flavours? Like Banoffi Pie or Fantasi Ice Orange.

When I googled ‘Vape Flavours’, I didn’t get a health warning, I got a whole succession of options, with the message ‘To help you out, here are the top 10 vape juice flavours you must try and a few others we really enjoyed too!’

Cool, dude.

In fact, there are an estimated 16,000 different flavours of vape, according to the World Health Organisation.

Like I said, insidious.

Let’s cut the hard sell here, and make it very, very plain.

E-cigarettes contain nicotine, a drug that’s highly addictive, even if you don’t vape every day. We have known the damage it can do since the 1950s, and earlier. We made great strides in all but eliminating it from society.

Yet here it is, back in a new guise, and hooking our children in plain sight.

It’s interesting that vapes, by law, have to contain a smaller amount of nicotine than normal cigarettes. Does this mean the hooked teen, seeking a greater hit, will move on to cigarettes? Irish research has shown this is indeed happening. I wonder if that’s a scenario the tobacco giants - who are behind the production of many e-cigarettes - had considered? Hmmmm....

An additional concern: Nicotine makes anxiety and depression worse. It also affects memory, concentration, self-control, and attention, especially in developing brains.

Are you worried yet?

And, yes, it is now illegal to sell vapes to anyone under 18 years old and there is little evidence that shops that sell them are knowingly breaking the law.

But, sure, do you remember being 15 and wanting to smoke a cigarette? Did any laws stop you? Or did you find ways around them?

Exactly.

Something drastic and Draconian must be done to remove this knotweed from the lungs of the next generation, but only very recently has the Government got around to making in-roads.

When it comes to tobacco, it seems the marketers are the hares, and the politicians are the tortoise - we can only hope the latter wins out in the end.

The tortoise has certainly been making shapes in recent months, with the ban on selling vapes to under 18s - but will it be enforced and have the desired effect?

Oddly, it appears there is as much concern for the environmental damage of these throw-away, disposable vapes, as there is for their impact on heath.

Disposable vapes are set to be banned in Ireland, and in other countries, while Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is said to be examining setting a new annual licence fee of €500 per shop that sells e-cigarettes. Also, ads for e-cigarettes near schools and on public transport could be banned.

It’s worth pointing out that vaping is seen by many as a good way to first reduce then eliminate a nicotine habit, so some health experts don’t want to see them totally banned. In any case, if you’re going to do that, you might as well go the whole hog and ban all tobacco.

In the summer, the HSE’s Tobacco Free Ireland Programme public health medicine lead, Dr Paul Kavanagh, raised concerns about the fact tobacco companies are behind the production of a lot of e-cigarettes. “That is always a bit worrying,” he admitted. “I am worried we have started to lose the tight grip we had on tobacco control.”

If a man with his title is worried, then parents, and all of society, should be very worried.

Next March will mark the 20th anniversary of Ireland’s historic smoking ban in pubs, restaurants and workplaces. One of Micheál Martin’s finest political achieve-ments, it was introduced despite fierce opposition, and soon copied by countries around the world.

Vaping, he said earlier this year, is “the revenge of the tobacco industry. I’m very angry about it. I think the number of children and young people vaping is too high”.

He is dead right.

It’s vital that we find a way to tackle this, but how? And when?