Working For The Clampdown
Trading Standards officers have been busy around the country as they clampdown on illegal vapes
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by Dave Cross
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Walsall shops were targeted by officers as they conducted intelligence-led strikes to uncover over £14,000’s worth of disposables.
The types of products were either classified as counterfeit devices or contained illegal nicotine concentrations that rendered them in breach of MHRA registration rules. Some products contained over five times the legal permittable volume of nicotine.
Councillor Garry Perry commented: “Looking at this recent haul of seized vapes, I’m very pleased these products have been ‘vaporised’ from our streets. Well done Trading Standards. The council is very concerned to see products like these ‘normalised’ in different settings. In some cases, they have even turned up in fish and chip shops.
“Illegal vapes pose a real hazard to children and young people, hooking them into a dangerous nicotine habit. Parents’ have rightly voiced their concerns to us – not only about the scarily high levels of nicotine but because they are cynically marketed to youngsters and disguised with fruit flavours to lure them in.”
Meanwhile, Stockton Council’s Trading Standards team has also been busy targeting vendors and removing 800 disposable vapes from stock.
The action gave the local paper the opportunity to state ecigs “target children with cartoon characters on the packaging and flavours like bubble gum, double apple and icy cola. Some of the disposable vapes resemble colourful highlighter pens in their design.”
Stockton Council’s Bob Cook said: “A number of these products are clearly designed to be attractive to children and are potentially harmful to health. Thankfully hundreds of these illegal e-cigarettes have now been removed from sale, but there may be others out there.”
In Birmingham, trading standards officers teamed up with the police and students from two local schools. They visited Super Wines, Top European Market, Naga Food Store and Zak Food Store to inform them about the danger of underage sales.
A police spokesperson stated: “The idea is to speak to shop owners about the harms of selling vapes to those under the age of 18 and they play a part in protecting our community. It’s important this message is sent out to the community and particularly those selling vapes. They are harmful and it’s misunderstood that they are harmless but they have nicotine and cause you to become addictive.”
Again, the focus was on the supply of disposable vape products.
The sale of products that are not Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency compliant and providing disposables to teen buyers may be limited to a minority of vendors but the impact on vaping’s reputation by local media coverage is severe.
Recently, the Independent British Vape Trade Association praised action taken by Newcastle Trading Standards officers and reminded vendors that it provides guidance on product compliance and preventing sales to young people.
Photo Credit:
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
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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