The UK Vape Escape

Possible ban of disposable vapes taking people's breath away?

15/09/23 | @c8linbaker | @martynastruth | @dkjournalism

By Caitlin Baker, Martyna Smoniewska & Delfina Kulakovska

(Photos by Saj HZ & Caitlin Baker, Video by @Nigel__farage on TikTok)

Let's be honest, disposable vapes have become a toxic world wide phenomenon over the past few years, yet the UK have only just decided to take action on a possible ban.

In our humble opinion, this action is completely pointless.

The government is without a doubt too late with their futile attempt to end this craze amongst teenagers. Several countries such as Australia, New Zealand and France have already taken actions towards the ban of

disposable vapes yet the UK lags behind.

To be honest, the UK government seems to lack complete common sense.

We as a country are too deep in our vaping obsession for vapes to become completely obsolete. All it takes is a short walk through any town centre to see bins littered with stickers that must be removed from the vape in order to use it. We can almost guarantee that if this law goes through disposable vapes will still be highly accessible.

For example, ELUX bars are illegal in the UK because they violate the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations, which set limits on the size and nicotine content of e-cigarettes, yet many corner shops in the UK still sell them and get away with it by not putting them on display. In fact, in Lithuania a law was recently passed as of July 1st 2022 that prohibits the production and sale of flavoured e-liquid, yet you are still able to purchase flavoured e-liquid. Delfina Kulakovska is from Lithuania and has herself seen the sale of flavoured e-liquid, "the way they get around this is by advertising them under a different name."

What is to stop people in the UK from doing this? What is to stop shops in the UK from labelling vapes under a different name?

"Those that want to vape disposable ones will buy them online, buy them on the black market and banning drugs has hardly worked with the younger population," says Nigel Farage, a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2021.

We agree with him.

There is no point in banning something that just won't go away. He goes onto say, "what is the point of banning stuff when you can just simply buy it on the black market and create a whole new criminal network." Now let's say theoretically, vapes do get banned and they begin to sell on the black market. How is that any safer? How do we know what's in them?

Now don't get us wrong, we're not saying that vapes are good for you and shouldn't be banned but encouraged. Vapes are 'highly addictive and can harm adolescent brain development, which continues into the early to mid-20s.' We are simply pointing out that the government is too late, if this law had gone into place a few years ago then just maybe this vaping craze amongst teenagers could have been avoided.

However, it did not.

We took to the streets of Nottingham to ask the public what they think about the possible ban of disposable vapes in the UK, "I think that it's a good idea because it can help a lot of kids stop vaping and I think it's good for the environment, and it's just cheaper in general," says an anonymous avid vape user. Another who is against vaping goes on to say, "I think it's useless, they're coming at the wrong thing."

The public confirms our deliberation, the ban of disposable vapes is a positive action because of how bad they are for you, but it remains a pointless and futile attempt at tackling the smoking craze of today as said by an anonymous source, "they're coming at the wrong thing." the government need to understand that it's not the vapes that need to be banned but how so many children are getting hold of them needs to be looked into because mark our words, vapes will not disappear.

We can assure you that ban or no ban, vapes are here to stay.

What's your opinion on the possible ban of disposable vapes in the UK? Let us know down below.