AT just 5ft 2in in her chunky boots, a teenager walks into a corner shop and leaves with an addictive fruity vape in her hand.
It is illegal to sell the nicotine-laced products to under-18s, but the number of kids using e-cigarettes is doubling each year.
The Sun on Sunday joined trading standards officials in Hammersmith, West London, who, with the help of the undercover police cadet, found that a quarter of shops were willing to sell vapes to the 17-year-old.
Senior trading standards officer Doug Love said: “This isn’t surprising. Unfortunately, a sizeable chunk of our teenage population are getting hooked on vapes.
“They are addictive and we don’t yet know the dangers.”
The teen cadet bought a blackberry-flavoured Elf Bar 600 from a High Street corner shop for £6. A couple of miles down the road in Fulham she bought another for £6 from a mobile phone kiosk.
Doug added: “We’ve seized vapes from dry cleaners, cafes and hairdressers. These businesses are not used to selling age-restricted products so it’s easy for teens to get them.”
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is calling for a ban on disposable vapes, which it says are causing an “epidemic” among youngsters, with limited evidence about the long-term impact on young lungs, hearts and brains.
Last month a poll by charity Action On Smoking And Health found a record 11.6 per cent of 11 to 17-year-olds have tried vaping, up 7.7 per cent on last year and twice as high as a decade ago.
One company, VapeGuardian, has installed fume detectors in more than 100 schools to monitor the habit. The sensors were developed by software engineer and dad-of-four Simon Hassett, who told The Sun on Sunday: “The sensors are alerting an average of 20 times a day in each school.
“I knew vaping was an issue, but this is shocking. The amount of nicotine, microplastics and other harmful substances puffed out is truly frightening.”
This week, Dame Rachel de Souza, England’s Children’s Commissioner, said she was “shocked” by research which found youngsters struggling to concentrate in class because they were not allowed to use their vape.
Popular flavours such as Apple Peach, Cotton Candy Ice, Pink Grapefruit and Strawberry Kiwi appear to be aimed at youngsters. Others have “disco” lights that flash when users take a drag.
New figures from the Chartered Institute of Marketing show more than 80 per cent of Brits support more regulation to prevent vapes being marketed to under-18s.
Nicotine-free vapes are not illegal to sell to youngsters but the Government is launching a review into the issue following concerns they act as a gateway to more addictive products.
PM Rishi Sunak last month pledged to look at ways to strengthen marketing rules on vapes, including closing a loophole which allows retailers to give free samples to children.
He said last week he was shocked by reports of illicit vapes containing lead getting into children’s hands, after tests on some confiscated from youngsters showed dangerous levels of the poisonous metal plus nickel and chromium, with some almost ten times above safe limits.
Exposure to lead can impair brain development, while the other two metals can trigger blood clotting.
Vaping has been linked with 200 health problems including heart disorders, chest pains and pneumonia, an official dossier has revealed. Watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency recorded 74 reports of health problems suspected to have been caused by e-cigs since 2014.
Mum Kat Nurden says her 15-year-old daughter’s vaping habit led to crippling chest pains.
Kat, 35, from Banbury, Oxon, said: “About two years ago Amelia was caught vaping at school. I’d noticed her asthma had got worse. After she was caught I suggested she stop vaping for a few days.”
Amelia’s cough soon cleared up and her sleep improved. She said: “Almost all my school friends vape now, but I won’t touch them.”
Dental expert Dr Alan Clarke says vaping can also have a damaging effect on teeth and gums. Nicotine reduces blood flow to the gums, he says, increasing the risk of gum disease, which in turn raises the chance of stroke, dementia, heart disease and some cancers.
Plumber Ben Bradley, 20, from Bromley, Kent, said: “I got hooked two years ago when they were handed out free in clubs and bars, and in weeks I was puffing all day.
“Apart from the cost — around £6 a day — I hate being a drug addict, and I believe these things are way worse for you than any of us know.
“I believe my bleeding gums are a sign of what’s going on inside. They’re like sweets with their fruit flavours.”
Performing arts student Joe Taylor, 19, from North West London, got hooked during lockdown. He said: “I used to think it was pathetic, people holding these stupid contraptions like a kid’s toy, yet almost instantly I was hooked.”
The global market was worth £2.5million in 2016 — now its estimated value is around £20billion. There are 4.3million vapers in the UK, up from 700,000 in 2012, with the boom fuelled by the rising use by young people. There are close to 3,000 vape stores and a growing number launching online.
Young people can be lured into purchasing online through apps such as TikTok, where the products are widely advertised. One youth support charity warned vapes are now used by criminal gangs to lure new “county lines” drug runners — promised with more traditional payments of cash, trainers and food.
Evan Jones, director of Child Exploitation Development at charity St Giles Trust, said: “The vapes aren’t always solely for personal use and are sometimes sold by children and young people for cash. Our Wales team reported a boy of 11 selling vapes to help his family through the cost-of-living crisis.”
Back in Hammersmith, Trading Standards officer Doug took us to the room where seized vapes are stored as evidence. Amid a sickly puff of synthetic straw- berries and bubblegum, there were around 2,000 vapes, some with illegal levels of nicotine.
Doug said: “This is the tip of the iceberg. We don’t know the quality of these products or what’s in them. It’s a wild west.”
By Dr Mike McKean
IT took decades to understand the relationship between cigarette smoking and cancer and respiratory illnesses.
My worry is we could be sleepwalking into a similar situation here.
If you inhale potentially noxious, volatile substances there is a huge potential for an inflammatory reaction that could have a minor or a major effect.
There is lots of evidence it causes significant coughing and breathlessness.
I’m in no doubt that people’s lungs will get damaged.
Walk past any school and you’ll see the problem – children as young as nine or ten getting hooked on vaping, inhaling chemicals with long-term effects that we simply don’t know.
