Has anyone in government ever asked a teenager what they would do if vaping became illegal? Clearly not, it seems, if you’ve read the work of Caitlin Notley, professor of addiction studies at the University of East Anglia.

“It is crucial that we talk to young people about their views on vaping, as they are the ones who can inform us of the unintended consequences of a ban,” says Professor Notley. “The possibility that young people will start smoking after an outright ban on disposable vapes is real, and that’s a big concern for us.

After interviewing a group of 16 to 20 year olds about their experiences with vaping and smoking, in a study published this summer, Professor Notley and his team concluded that a strict ban on disposable vapes would likely create a dangerous black market electronic devices in the hands of more children and encourage some to smoke cigarettes.

Cheap disposable vapes have already taken over schools, with many teachers confiscating Elf Bars from classrooms and school staff “installing cameras and vape detectors in toilets.”

A ban cannot cancel out the fact that nicotine is already widely availablee to a generation of young people, and many teenagers now have a nicotine addiction that could be difficult to break without proper support, says Professor Notley.

“A ban will be a big experiment,” she adds, and “we don’t know exactly what will happen until it’s tried, but any ban on something dangerous comes with unintended consequences.”

Here’s why a strict ban on disposable vapes could do more harm than good — and might not produce a smoke-free generation after all.

Vape companies have a head start

The ban on disposable vapes due to come into force in June aims to protect young people from the lure of fun, colorful and cheap devices with fruity flavors “intended to appeal to children”, says Professor Notley.

The logic behind this is that bulky and expensive rechargeable vapes, used by many adults to quit smoking, will not appeal to children and will not be as easily accessible to them.

But given the months it took for the legislation behind the ban to be passed, “many businesses will have seen it coming”, says Professor Notley.

Many companies “are now producing refillable or refillable vapes that are cheap and easily available, and very similar to the devices young people use today, but these will not be banned as they are not covered by the specific legislation “.

Some of the young people involved in Professor Notley and his team’s research are “already using these devices, and the products will evolve with the ban, so we don’t necessarily know what will be available on the market.”

Many teenagers will also treat rechargeable devices “like disposable devices” because of their appearance.

Some children will get hold of illicit vapes

As Professor Notley points out, “it is already illegal to sell vapes to people under the age of 18,” and yet children and teenagers still manage to obtain them. In 2023, one in five young people under 18 had tried vaping, and more than one in ten vaped at least once or twice a week.

Young people often buy disposable vapes from unscrupulous corner stores or from older friends, who buy vapes in bulk to resell, Professor Notley says.

Then there’s the “pre-existing black market for vapes that come from overseas, which are cheap and quite easily available, but which are not regulated in the same way”, explains Professor Notley.

“If you ban something, it’s possible that people will use illegal products that are more harmful, whereas when something is legal you can regulate and control it more closely.”

On top of that, “we know that some children are already using these illegal products, and part of my work has involved elementary-age children, to create guidelines on how to spot one of these devices the most. more dangerous.”

Other young people will turn to tobacco – because they are addicted to nicotine

Although fashion and social group role models are important reasons why young people have started vaping – as well as “the comforting behavioral aspect of vaping which involves the regular movement from hand to mouth”, says Professor Notley – this alone does not explain why people continue to vape. after trying it.

Like adults, adolescents develop a nicotine addiction, sometimes just a few weeks or days after starting their occasional use of vaping or cigarettes.

“Young people who vape regularly probably have a nicotine addictionand we need to find ways to support them and help them not turn to tobacco,” says Professor Notley. Like illegal vapes, “illicit tobacco products are a huge problem, and young people are often very savvy and know how to get cigarettes.”

Adolescents don’t always understand that cigarettes are dangerous

This may seem unbelievable to anyone who grew up watching commercials about the dangers of smoking, but the anti-cigarette messages today’s teens have received are generally much weaker than older people might remember.

“It is likely that as smoking levels fall in the population, we believe that young people starting to smoke is no longer something we need to stop, which is why there has been disinvestment in the countryside to discourage people from smoking,” explains Professor Notley.

“Teenagers may not have seen these ads, but they have heard horror stories about vapes explode in pockets.”

All of this makes it more likely that children who are addicted to nicotine will start smoking cigarettes.

Of course, vapes are not risk-free – “no one would want to tell teenagers that vaping is safe,” says Professor Notley – but because of the information they get online and sometimes at school, “the young people can be confused. on the relative harms of cigarettes compared to vaping”.

Ban demonizes nicotine, not tobacco

While no one would want their child to vape, it would be wrong to assume that vaping is a more dangerous pastime than smoking.

Nicotine is addictive, but it is not carcinogenic in itself. When it comes to cigarettes, “we know that the harm caused by tobacco comes from inhaling burned tobacco smoke, and that it is the chemical changes involved in this action that actually cause the harm. »

“The average tobacco cigarette, when inhaled, contains over 7,000 different chemicals and at least 70 different carcinogenswhich are known to directly cause cancer, thanks to many years of research,” explains Professor Notley.

Again, as disposable vapes are still very new, there has not been enough time to conduct long-term studies that examine the impacts of regular vape use over several decades – so it is more sure not to use either one. Inhaling nicotine from a vape can also increase your blood pressure and damage the tissues in your lungs.

But disposable vapes cut out the combustion involved in smoking, “and while the jury is still out on how safe the flavoring chemicals found in different vapes are,” and illegal vapes could have more worrisome chemicals added , “Vaping should be much less harmful. “.

Smoking will be normalized again

Before the advent of disposable vapes, cigarettes were the main method of nicotine consumption in Britain. Today, about 14 percent of adults smoke and about 9 percent of adults vape, with about half of vapers being former smokers. In 2016, 19 percent of British adults smoked, while around 6 percent of people vaped.

In SwedenMeanwhile, snus – tobacco pouches that people put between their gums and lips – is the most common form of nicotine consumption. As a result, “Sweden has incredibly low levels of smoking, because cultural norms there have changed.”

Only 6 percent of the Swedish population smokes cigarettes daily, with young people least likely to smoke.

Although snus comes with its own health concerns – regular consumption has been linked to an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease – it has also been shown to be safer than smoking cigarettes regularly.

Normalizing smoking again, by making disposable vapes illegal, could lead to more people suffering the adverse health effects that come with regular smoking.

Their health will also suffer as adults

The Government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill could ban the sale of cigarettes and vapes to anyone under the age of 15 by the end of this year.

But today, young people aged 16 and 17 will be able to buy vapes or refillable cigarettes from the age of 18, and already young women over 18 in particular “smoke tobacco in greater numbers” than ‘We haven’t seen it before, Professor,’ said Notley.

Adults who smoke are advised to switch to vaping, “and many of the flavors of disposable vapes that appeal to children also appeal to adults who want to quit smoking,” she says.

While it is important to design vapes so that they are unappealing to children, a ban – with all its potential side effects – may not be necessary to prevent this. “Simply calling something blueberry flavor rather than ‘blueberry glazed’ might be enough to be suitable for adults, while being less appealing to children,” adds Professor Notley.