The government knows vapes are hazardous, that pathological respiratory, cardiovascular, DNA and other biological changes can result from vaping, but it is effectively doing nothing.
It allows them to be sold everywhere, including online, as with this alluring Just Juice vape ad.
Most of the following has been said, but it needs to be restated, and brought further into the light.
It is clear that vapers' health, the costs to them and to New Zealand generally, from the widespread use of e-cigarettes with many users having no idea of risks other than the nicotine addictive factor, are of no concern to the New Zealand government given its behaviour.
It is easy to ignore the vaping of NZ if you don't care about what clinicians, parents, school principals, W.H.O. and many others say, including children who want to stop vaping.
Noone is dropping dead yet, just succumbing to respiratory conditions and keeping on inhaling hazardous chemicals, at concentrations known to be toxic to airways and other systems, so a real risk for vital organ failure, such as where normal breathing is impossible, the heart and blood vessels are damaged and malfunction failing to pump, becoming blocked, and forming clots which cause strokes and prevent oxygen reaching tissues, potential cancerous changes can occur, and brain function be impaired especially in developing brains.
The time bomb analogies to tobacco are frightening.
A major indicator of this is that life insurance companies make cost of cover increase due to health risk the same! for tobacco and e- cigarette users.
A recent stat is that 18.6% of 15-24 year olds vape daily. In a study undertaken by school principals of 19,000 year 9-13 students, 27% reported vaping in the previous week.
But the vape industry is thriving, money is pouring into the vape corporations, with major ones offshore, and into the bank accounts of all the vape dealers within NZ, and into government coffers with every deal made.
A cost analysis was made recently for tobacco use with extraordinary findings - see below (1). A similar one must be undertaken for vapes, concurrent with immediate real regulation and publicity of risks, and implementation of quitting programmes for both tobacco and vape users throughout the country.
Anything else is criminal.
Come on government! Stop helping the tobacco-vape industry hook NZ and then mine its citizens for money. Stop dealing addictive toxins. Noone believes the government aim is to help tobacco smokers stop, or the protocols would be very different.
Other references
Study Links E-Cigarette Use with Higher Risk of Heart Failure - American College of Cardiology
https://www.acc.org/About-ACC/Press-Releases/2024/04/01/21/51/study-links-e-cigarette-use-with-higher-risk-of-heart-failure