The link between vaping and smoking was never starker than in the federal government's $247.4-million commitment to support Australians to quit nicotine in all its noxious guises. Research shows that young non-smokers who vape are about three times more likely to go on to smoke cigarettes, compared with young people who do not vape. Smoking is the largest risk factor for disease burden and death in Australia, and conclusive evidence shows vaping causes addiction, poisoning, toxicity seizures, burns and lung injury. The Albanese government is to be applauded for its world-leading plans to restrict the supply of non-prescription e-cigarettes by banning single-use disposable vapes, reducing allowable nicotine content; and introducing minimum quality standards on flavours, colours and ingredients as well as pharmaceutical-like packaging. To help restrict the supply of vapes, Border Force and the Therapeutic Goods Administration are set to receive multimillion-dollar boosts. However, demand for vapes will not easily be sated - and that's because teens and young people are often unknowingly vaping high levels of addictive nicotine. As a behavioural specialist, I've spent the past couple of years studying e-cigarette use among our teens and young people - why they started, what motivates them to continue, and why they won't or can't quit. Our young people are struggling. I've heard teens as young as 13 share stories of how taking a puff at social events rapidly morphed into an addiction that makes them feel sick and anxious. A 16-year-old from Sydney said: "When you do vape you are not really stressed or depressed. But when you stop you start to feel this. Sometimes when you are vaping you get stressed about how much you want to quit." Federal Health Minister Mark Butler is correct to declare vaping "the number-one behavioural issue in high schools" - and certainly the seeds for the urgent government intervention were sown in conversations in staff rooms and P&C councils across Australia. As Mr Butler points out, an "unregulated - essentially illegal - market has flourished right before our eyes; in convenience stores, tobacconists and vape shops ... sometimes deliberately set up down the road from their target markets - schools." READ MORE: The Minderoo Foundation-backed Generation Vape study revealed that 80 per cent of 14-17 year olds who have vaped in NSW found it "very easy", "easy" or "quite easy" to access vapes. To counter this, retail enforcement at a state and territory level will be critical to ensuring the plan succeeds in stopping retailers selling toxic products to young people and non-smokers for whom they were never intended. Through our Collaborate Against Cancer initiative, Minderoo Foundation continues to seek ways to empower behavioural change among 14-25 year olds and stop the tobacco and e- cigarette industries from preying on them. Quitting an addictive substance is never easy, but we can shift the dial by inspiring and empowering young people to quit vapes in a way that speaks to, and not at, them. By supporting them and unclouding the facts from big tobacco-peddled myths, we aim to make crystal-clear what young people stand to gain by ditching vapes.
