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The government is to consider restricting the sale of vaping products to minors and prohibiting advertising.<\/p>\nThe government is to consider restricting the sale of vaping products to minors and prohibiting advertising.<\/p>\n
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that any changes to legislation on e-cigarettes will be based on scientific advice and what is advised by public health doctors and experts.<\/p>\n
Fianna F\u00e1il leader Miche\u00e1l Martin claimed the vaping industry is targeting children and young people through colorful and flavored vaping products and ads.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin accused the industry of trying to \u201chook\u201d young people to get them addicted to nicotine through the vaping devices.<\/p>\n
He claimed these strategies mirrored the ones used by the tobacco industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe financial muscle behind this epidemic is provided by the tobacco industry,\u201d Mr Martin added.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren are being targeted, with colorful and flavored vaping products, in the country\u2019s shopping centers, and main streets or locations for pop up shops selling vaping devices, and e-cigarettes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAd campaigns have proliferated nearly every Dublin bus, as well as strategically placed billboards all over Dublin and across the cities and the towns.<\/p>\n
“There’s been an unacceptable level of youth usage of these products.”<\/p>\n
He told the Dail that teen e-cigarette use has risen sharply since 2017 and called for the government to ban the sale of vaping products to under-18s and ban advertising products.<\/p>\n
Mr Varadkar said that research is being carried out into the impact of vaping on the health of people and children.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to assess the extent to which is damaging to somebody\u2019s health and then respond having taken that into account,\u201d Mr Varadkar added.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s something certainly that the government will give consideration to restricting the sale of vaping equipment to minors, prohibiting and restricting advertising.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything in the workplace is largely due to secondhand effect and whether the impact of somebody vaping has an impact on the person beside them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are definitely things that government will consider, but we will do it based on the evidence and the scientific advice and what our public health doctors and experts say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaping is widely perceived to be a safer alternative to smoking, however recent research suggests that vaping could damage vital immune system cells and cause lung diseases.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said there is a growing teen use of vaping devices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had been really succeeding in terms of getting young people away from the whole idea of nicotine addiction,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mr Varadkar agreed that young people are being targeted through advertising and flavored devices.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIt does have all the hallmarks of what we saw before with flavored cigarettes, the type of advertising that was carried out for alcopops, all of those things.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a matter that we need to examine with more urgency than has been the case in the past and I will speak to the Health Minister (Simon Harris) and the chief medical officer to look at that scientific advice and to assess where we need to go from here.\u201d<\/p>\n