Regulating Vaping — Policies, Possibilities, and Perils
Soaring rates of vaping among young people and associated problems have resulted in great urgency and important challenges for policymakers. Despite the urgency, policies should be evidence-based and thoughtfully designed. They require effective, collaborative, and well-funded enforcement by federal and state governments. Policymakers should aim to reduce vaping among young people while maintaining avenues to help smokers quit.
E-cigarette attitudes and use in a sample of Australians aged 15–30 years
Although you can’t legally buy nicotine e-cigarettes without a prescription, sales to minors is prohibitted and promotion of e-cigarettes in general is restricted, new research suggests more young Australians are using them and finding them easy to access. study suggests a need for much greater monitoring and enforcement.
How do underage youth access e-cigarettes in settings with minimum age sales restriction laws? A scoping review
Further research examining how social supply routes operate, including interaction and power dynamics, is crucial to reducing youth vaping. Given widespread access via schools and during social activities and events, exploring how supply routes operate and evolve in these settings should be prioritized. Inadequate compliance with existing sales regulations suggest greater national and local policy enforcement, including fines and licence confiscation for selling to minors, is required at the retailer level.
OTRU - E-Cigarette Enforcement Measures: Theory, Evidence and Regulatory Policy
A grey literature Ontario study that found overall retail compliance with not selling e-cigarettes to minors was 90%. Compliance in specialty vape shops was higher than in convenience stores. There is substantial evidence from conventional tobacco that enforcement of youth access regulations is important to support interventions aimed at reducing illegal sales to youth. Lack of enforcement is associated with higher levels of illegal sales to youth. This report explores the evidence for enforcement and e-cigarettes, as well as other related substances including tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis.
OTRU - E-Cigarette Social Sources: Theory, Evidence and Regulatory Policy
There are no federal policies currently in place aimed at reducing social sources of e-cigarettes. A recent Health Canada report acknowledges that most young people in Canada are accessing vaping products socially through friends and family and not making purchases themselves. While it is well known that youth are accessing e-cigarettes via social sources, interventions to address this problem are under-developed. Findings from conventional tobacco show that it is very likely that raising the minimum age and increasing compliance and enforcement measures are likely to be effective in reducing the overall social supply of e-cigarettes.
Illegal Experimental Tobacco Marketplace II: effects of vaping product bans - findings from the 2020 International Tobacco Control Project
Vaping restrictions may shift users’ preference to the illegal marketplace in a regulatory environment. Evidence of the IETM generalisability in a geographically dispersed sample enhances its utility in tobacco regulatory science.
A Qualitative Analysis of How Underage Adolescents Access Nicotine Vaping Products in Aotearoa New Zealand
Disrupting social supply will be challenging, though reducing ECs’ availability, appeal, and affordability could make social supply, including sharing and proxy purchasing, more difficult. Reports that youth purchase ECs from commercial retailers known to waive age verification suggests stronger monitoring and enforcement, along with escalating retailer penalties, is required.
