Young people call for disposable vapes to be banned

Young people in Oldham have called for all disposable e-cigarettes to be banned after concerns over the rising number of teenagers vaping.

A motion put forward by the Oldham Youth Council at a meeting of the full council stated that the use of e-cigarettes and oils ‘pose a significant risk to young people’s health and wellbeing’.

They asked members to back a call to the the chief executive to write to the Health Secretary asking for the sale of the disposable vapes to be banned.

During the debate, councillors were told that vaping has already led to young people ending up in hospital in Oldham.

Youth councillors presenting their motion stated that they were concerned that young people were starting vaping having never smoked cigarettes, and were not using it as a means to cut down or quit smoking tobacco.

The motion stated that from a trading standards survey carried out in the borough this year, almost one in three young people claimed to have tried vaping aged 12 or younger.

It also found that 15pc of 14 to 17-year-olds who took part had vaped, and more than one in ten used them regularly.

This was twice as high as the previous survey carried out in 2020.

Coun Shaid Mushtaq, cabinet member for children and young people, said: “Vaping is not being used as a tool to quit smoking, to the contrary it has become the new smoking.

“More dangerous than the act of vaping itself is the culture and thinking that has led to such an increase in young people taking it up.

“We have already seen young people in Oldham hospitalised because of vaping and experimentation with add-ons.

“What we don’t know is the long-term effects this is having on the health of our young people.

"To put it simply, our children are the vape guinea pigs – the impact on their growth and development will only become apparent when it’s too late.”

Backing the motion, St James ward Coun Josh Charters added that disposable vapes also posed a significant littering issue.

“I did a litter pick the other day in my ward, and the amount of disposable vapes I picked up was quite scary considering what can happen with the batteries that are inside those vapes,” he said.

“They can cause significant fires. I used to work in the recycling industry and the amount of fires that have been caused in recycling plants because of these – they literally just explode in the middle of being held.”

Conservative Royton North Coun Dave Arnott said he was a former 50-a-day smoker who now used a rechargeable e-cigarette.

“There are some huge benefits of vapes for adult smokers, and it worked for me and I’d tried everything else,” he said.

“On the other side of the vape revolution we have a very worrying development – young people taking up vaping who have not previously smoked tobacco.”

But he raised concerns that one shop he visited had no ‘tobacco’ flavour despite selling hundreds of other flavours.

“So it’s clear where the market goes, and it’s wrong,” Coun Arnott said.

He added he was supportive of the government closing a legal loophole which had allowed children under the age of 18 to be given free samples of e-cigarettes.

Councillors unanimously agreed to back the motion calling for a ban on disposable e-cigarettes.

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