Shops selling illegal vapes and the sale of vaping products to children are the top threats on the UK’s High Streets, according to Trading Standards officials.
In a survey of more than 400 Trading Standards officers, 60 per cent said their main worries were shops selling illegal vapes which are potentially unsafe, and the sale of any vaping products to under-18s, which is also illegal, BBC reported.
“When Trading Standards teams do spot checks on the sale of vaping products to kids, we find around one in three businesses break the law,” says Duncan Stephenson, director of external affairs at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.
In recent years, vapes and e-cigarettes have been a successful way of helping many people give up smoking.
But some shops are selling vapes containing 12,000 puffs of e-liquid, when the law permits only about 600. Others contain illegally high levels of nicotine.
In the north-east of England alone, more than 1.4 tonnes of illegal vapes was seized from shops in the second half of last year, while in Kent there was a dramatic rise in counterfeit vaping products seized at Channel ports in December, with more than 300,000 removed.
Mobile phone shops, gift shops and convenience stores are among the shops found to be selling the devices to children.
There is a rising concern that cheap, brightly-coloured vapes are ending up in the hands of 12 and 13-year-olds. The government said it was considering what more could be done to protect children from vaping.
Child health experts said they were already “deeply disturbed” by the rise of children and young people picking up e-cigarettes.
To hear that these products could also be illegal and unregulated was “terrifying”, they added.
Stephenson wants to see tougher penalties for these businesses and a review of how vaping products are promoted – particularly when it comes to flavourings, colours and branding which appeal to children.
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