UKVIA Releases Prevention Guide
The UK Vaping Industry Association has released an updated version of its ‘Preventing Underage Sales Guide’, aimed at UK retailers
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by Dave Cross
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“As youth vaping continues to make headlines on an almost daily basis, the UK Vaping Industry Association has updated its guide to retailers on preventing underage sales,” UKVIA says.
UKVIA Director General John Dunne said tackling the sale of vaping products to minors was ‘one of the most fundamental challenges facing the industry’.
In order to ensure that it gets to as many retailers as possible, the UKVIA is making its ‘Preventing Underage Sales Guide’ freely available via its website.
The 20-page guide is written in plain English, without any confusing jargon, and has been developed in partnership with the Association’s Primary Authority Partners, Buckinghamshire and Surrey and Trading Standards.
Dunne said: “The entire UKVIA membership is united behind the message that we must do all in our power to stop underage sales.
“This is one battle that we simply have to win but we need the support of Government, regulators and enforcement authorities in order to do so.
“Our Underage Sales Guide will give retailers all the information they need so that they don’t inadvertently sell to someone under 18.
“Policy makers, politicians and consumers must have confidence that the vaping industry is a responsible sector and this will be undermined if businesses do not implement and uphold robust age verification processes.
“The guide gives clear advice on how to implement a ‘Challenge 25’ policy and why it is important that anyone who appears to be younger than 25 should be asked to provide ID.”
The updated guide explains how to keep on the right side of UK equality legislation when conducting ID checks (by not refusing to accept all foreign passports or ID cards for example) and strongly advises retailers to maintain a ‘Refusals Register’ of each time a sale is denied on age grounds.
It also shows the signs to spot ‘proxy purchasing’, where adults try and buy vaping products for children; how to properly examine ID by using a six-step checklist and also covers areas including online age verification, digital ID and staff training needed to prevent underage sales.
Dunne added: “This guide will go a long way to ensuring that responsible retailers – who make up the vast majority of vape retailers in the UK – do not inadvertently sell to minors.
“But this alone is not enough, which is why we want unscrupulous retailers who knowingly sell to young people to face the full force of the law.
“We need sufficient funding for robust nationwide enforcement of the law from Trading Standards departments, backed up by fines of up to £10,000 per instance, so that selling to minors is just simply not worth the risk.”
While it is illegal to sell vaping products to under 18s anywhere in the UK, there are slightly different regulations for England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and these are set out in the updated guide.
UKVIA adds: “As part of our work with Citizencard, we are creating a retailer pack that will include downloadable assets to help prevent underage sales. These include posters, Challenge 25 badges and a refusal register amongst other useful tools. The Retailer Pack will be available on our website in the coming days and is already available to all UKVIA members.”
References:
Preventing Underage Sales Guide 2023 - https://www.ukvia.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Underage_sales_guide_Jan23_V2.pdf
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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