Lets face it, vaping, which was heralded as a better alternative to smoking has inadvertently led to the rise of teenage consumption of nicotine. I don’t think those who swear by vaping can cower behind the fact that it a healthy alternative to cigarettes any longer. In fact, I don’t think anyone is denying that it is a healthier alternative. The argument here is that teenagers, who wouldn’t normally pick up the habit of smoking, are getting into vaping. And a big reason for that is the assortment of attractive flavours at their disposal.

With the advent of teenage vaping at the highest its ever been, the USA are finally taking action in an attempt to negate it by banning most fruit and mint-flavored, cartridge-based vaping products. This comes just weeks after congress decided on raising the minimum smoking and vaping age to 21.

The recent 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey found that over 5 million US high school students currently using e-cigarettes, with a majority of them using cartridge based products specifically. To no ones surprise, it turns out that youth users are also particularly attracted to fruit and mint flavoured cartridges.

It’s worth noting that these new restrictions do have exceptions. For one, it does not apply to tobacco and menthol flavoured products. Another is that it only applies to pod (cartridge) vapes. So the old fashioned tank based vapes are still aye okay. These exceptions reflect the data from nationwide studies that show that teens are more likely to avoid tobacco and menthol flavours as well as the unfashionable tank vapes.

With vaping being associated with over 2000 cases of lung injury and 54 related deaths in the US alone, this decision has been a long time coming. Here in Malaysia, it’s been a topic of debate for a while now. The government has been thinking about banning vapes completely for what seems like forever now, but thus far nothing has materialised. You can trust however, that it is definitely in the works, and with the US banning flavours that attract teens to smoking vapes, my guess is its only a matter of time before Malaysia follows suit.

The sad part about all this is whether it’s banned or not, we’re not exactly known for how well we enforce the bans we put in place, and the recent smoking ban is a great example of that. What’s the point of coming up with all these bans and regulations if it’s not going to be enforced?