Central residents can have their say on proposed government measures to help reduce the number of young people vaping.

Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said youth vaping is becoming increasingly popular, with many choosing to vape despite never having smoked.

“Alongside our efforts to reduce tobacco smoking, we want to ensure vaping products are safe, regulated and are only being used for cessation purposes as intended.”

The Government wants feedback on several proposals, including introduce proximity restrictions for all new specialist vape retailers, for instance that they are not near schools and sports grounds. 

These restrictions would not apply to general vape retailers such as dairies and petrol stations, which are already limited to the sale of three vape flavours. 

Secondly vaping flavour names could potentially be restricted to reduce the attraction of vaping products to young people.

For example flavour names such as ‘cotton candy’ may no longer be allowed, with a generic term ‘candy’ having to be used instead.

“Thirdly we’d also look to restrict single-use vaping products, which are cheaper and more easily accessible. It would mean all vaping products for sale would need to have removable/replaceable batteries, child safety mechanisms and substance container labelling,” Dr Verrall said. 

The maximum concentration of nicotine salts allowed in single-use products would be reduced from 50mg/mL to 35mg/mL and serial numbers will be required to ensure they can be traced if there are safety concerns. 

“Disposable vapes are an easy gateway product to vaping and internationally there has been a dramatic increase in younger people using them. A recent study found 86% of 14-17 years old from New South Wales had tried disposable vapes.”   

Dr Verrall said these additional measures will work to protect youth from the appeal and attractiveness of vaping.

“Vaping has a role to play in ensuring smokers who wish to quit smoking can do so using vaping products. However youth vaping rates are too high and we need to strike a better balance.” 

Central Otago Drug and Alcohol (CODA) is a coalition of groups based in Central Otago collectively working to achieve the objective of Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 for the community.

Membership includes representatives from a variety of health, social service, and community organisations.

A CODA spokesperson confirmed they intend to write a submission on the tobacco and vaping regulations after they have met to discuss their input.

The consultation document Proposals for the Smoked Tobacco Regulatory Regime, seeking feedback on proposals to implement significant reductions to the retail availability, appeal and addictiveness of smoked tobacco products can be found online. 

Submissions close 5.00 pm, March 15, 2023.

Read an earlier Central App story about CODA’s work advocating for reducing nicotine harm.

Meanwhile, a new campaign by Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand) and other groups called 'Protect Your Breath' features videos on the social media platforms and digital media environments where rangitahi interact. 

This campaign aims to provoke conversations, and stimulate user-generated, shared content to get people to consider the impact of vaping on themselves and their communities. 

Ministry of Health facts about vaping can be found here. 

How has vaping affected you, your whānau or your friends? Let our [email protected] know your story.

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