Supposedly, vaping was a convenient substitute for tobacco cigarettes, and smokers would shift to much-less harmful vapes.
New Zealand could make substantial progress towards its 2025 Smokefree (less than 5% of the population smoking) goal.
Instead, the early claims have gone up in smoke. A generation of vapers has emerged, including prevalent addiction among school pupils.
The Government and ASH (Action for Smokefree 2025) might have retreated somewhat but are sticking to their fundamental views on vaping as an important quit-smoking tool.
They seem unprepared to admit gains from their strategy could be outweighed by long-term public health losses.
The Ministry of Health’s position statement still says it considers vaping products to have the potential to make a contribution to the Smokefree 2025 goal. It also says vaping "could disrupt the significant inequities that are present".
It now notes that vaping’s potential to improve public health depends on the extent it can act as a route out of smoking for New Zealand’s 331,000 daily smokers without providing a route into smoking for children and non-smokers. The ministry maintains vaping products are much less harmful than smoking tobacco but not completely harmless.
It says a range of toxicants have been found in vapour including some cancer-causing agents but, in general, at levels much lower than found in cigarette smoke or at levels that are unlikely to cause harm. Smokers switching to vaping products were highly likely to reduce the risks to their health and those around them. It seems, however, health worries about vaping are steadily rising as time passes.
The alarm raised these days by heart, asthma, lung and cancer specialists make it clear the almost open-slather approach initially to vaping was misguided. Vaping was cast as largely harmless. The smoking-switch potential helped promote its status, and its use took off.
Perhaps hindsight was needed to realise vapes should only have been available via prescriptions or official stop-smoking sources from the early days. But it did not take that much foresight to realise that strong and seriously enforced restrictions should have been in place from the beginning, especially because health impacts were little understood.
The horses have bolted. Vaping is now so widespread and has such a hold that the time for the prescription-only route has probably passed.
Nicotine, common in vapes, is among the top-tier addictive substances.
An addictive in-demand product is well-nigh immune to what would be close to prohibition. The black market would flourish, and the web provides porous importing and distribution channels, including for teenagers. Users would be exposed to those who would promote more harmful drugs, and the quality and safety of vapes would be compromised.
Australia is ambitiously going down this prescription-only path as it struggles to contain vaping. Some teachers have described it as the number one behavioural challenge in schools. Australia’s successes and failures will be worth watching.
The gap between promises to regulate the industry in 2018 and restrictions introduced in 2020 was exploited through "outrageous" marketing to young people. Vaping use soared. In June the Government announced more measures to tackle vaping, including preventing new vaping locations within 300m of schools or marae.
A research letter in last week’s New Zealand Medical Journal says these regulations do not go far enough.
What had occurred over the past year was a near doubling of specialist vaping retailers within 1km of schools.
Prof Janet Hoek, of the University of Otago, Wellington, said aggressive marketing had been targeted at young people.
Of particular concern, also, were small retailers, often dairies, who subdivided their premises to include a specialist vape store.
There is big money as well as Big Tobacco in the vaping business. Any regulation gaps, delays until implementation, weak enforcement or mixed messages are manipulated and exploited.
This new tightening of the rules is again too little and too late.
