It will be illegal to sell e-cigarettes/vaping products to under-18s in the near future when a new Bill, the second stage of which came before the Dail on Tuesday, comes into effect.
The primary focus of the Tobacco & Nicotine Inhaling Products Bill is to protect young people from the dangers of smoking, according to the Minister for Public Health, Wellbeing and the National Drugs Strategy, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton.
She said 2018 figures revealed almost 10 per cent of children used an e-cigarette in the previous 30 days, statistics which she described as "frightening". "We expect that this figure is much higher today - and children who vape are five times more likely to pick up smoking. That is a very serious issue and highlights the need to prevent the selling of e-cigarettes or vapes to children."
The local Fine Gael TD said one in five children in Ireland smokes regularly and evidence indicates vaping is a gateway to smoking tobacco. The Bill bans the following:
* The sale of nicotine inhaling products to minors
* The sale by self-service, such as through self-service vending machines, of tobacco products and nicotine inhaling products
* The sale of nicotine inhaling products and tobacco products at events for minors
* The advertising of nicotine inhaling products in schools and on public transport and for children in cinemas
"The legislation will build on previous legislation in the area of tobacco control where we are working to reduce the number of people who smoke tobacco products and use other nicotine inhaling products in the country," said Minister Naughton who is the Government Chief Whip. "These include the workplace smoking ban, the ban on smoking in cars with children, and the introduction of plain packaging for tobacco products.
"We all know that smoking tobacco is extremely dangerous and, compared to tobacco, e-cigarettes are likely to be less harmful. We recognise that some adults use e-cigarettes in order to quit smoking, which is positive in itself, though the jury is out on the harm that they may cause, and therefore it is not proposed to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to adults."
She stated the legislation aims to protect children from the "evident harm" of smoking. "While people may consider that vaping is entirely harmless, it is not. It dramatically increases the likelihood of a child starting to smoke tobacco and, for this reason, it is vital to ensure that vaping products are not sold to anyone under eighteen."
Meanwhile, a recent meeting of the HSE West's regional health forum was told that seven people with vaping related disorders were discharged from HSE hospitals since 2018.
According to the National Tobacco Free Ireland Programme (NTFIP ) lead, these numbers are very small. More detail could not be reported because individuals would become identifiable. The NTFIP says it is not aware of any Irish national research on vaping damage in young adults.
An evidence review into the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes, which was conducted on behalf of the Department of Health in 2020, included poisonings (mainly nicotine and some e-liquid constituents ), injuries (burns and fractures ), and respiratory diseases (mainly lung damage and the worsening of asthma ) among the observed clinical harms.
Deaths were recorded among the poisoning and respiratory disease cases and long-term disability among some burn cases. Both the poisoning and respiratory disease cases highlighted a possible association between e-cigarettes and the use of other drugs such as alcohol, synthetic cannabinoids, and opiates. There was some early evidence of heart and respiratory tissue damage, primarily due to metals and volatile organic compounds. Four cross-sectional surveys on cancers identified the presence of carcinogens for lung, oral, and oesophageal cancer, and one identified biomarkers for bladder cancers.
There is limited data on the long term health effects of e-cigarettes. An article in the Journal of Physiology outlined that E-cigarettes are "exceedingly" different from conventional cigarettes because the former contain dozens of chemicals not found in cigarette smoke. The paper concluded that it is highly likely that chronic use of e-cigarettes will induce pathological changes in both the heart and lungs.
The latest Healthy Ireland Survey (2022 ), which was commissioned by the Department of Health, indicated that six per cent of the population (from age 15 upwards ) currently use e-cigarettes either daily or occasionally with a further 13 per cent reporting they have tried them in the past but no longer use them. Usage of e-cigarettes is highest among those aged under 25 years with 11 per cent in this age group currently using them either daily or occasionally.
