Council / Young folk ‘finding ways’ to get hands on vapes despite prevention efforts
YOUNG folk “still find ways” to get vapes despite efforts by the council’s trading standards team to ensure shops do not sell them to people under 18.
Team leader David Marsh said they carry out occasional spot checks with local retailers to remind them to check the ages of people buying vapes.
However he said young people “will get them from somewhere”, and “will still find ways to get them”.
Marsh said he was not aware of any data about where young people get vapes from in Shetland, adding there had “not really been any research” done locally.
It comes amid a rise in illegal vapes in the UK – although Marsh stressed this has not been an issue in Shetland.
He said they had not seized any illegal vapes – which can have more nicotine than legislated, contain bigger tanks or not display any warning labels – in the isles.
No shopper or parent had raised any concerns about potentially illegal vapes being sold here, Marsh stressed.
Keeping vapes out of the hands of Shetland’s young folk is a “focus” for Shetland Islands Council’s trading standards team, however, he said.
An NHS Highland report into vaping found that almost a quarter of people young people – 22 per cent – had tried vaping when they were 13 or younger.
Of the 348 secondary four pupils surveyed, almost 40 per cent had vaped in their lifetime.
And 30 per cent of those that said they used e-cigarettes every day said their parents either did not mind or approved of their usage.
Marsh said trading standards has regularly visited retailers in Shetland to give them advice and support about selling vapes and how they could stop them from reaching young folk.
“We occasionally do some test purchasing exercises,” he said.
“We don’t do that very often because we rarely get any information that a shop has been selling to young folk.
“Occasionally they do fail the check, but there’s been nothing to suggest that is a pattern of behaviour – it’s often just a lapse by a particular staff member.”
The trading standards team leader said there were also restrictions on what random checks they could do on businesses, adding they “really have to have good reason” to do them.
Another stumbling block was finding underage volunteers willing to go into shops to try and purchase things like vapes.
He said they would sometimes use 18 or 19-year-olds, who could buy alcohol or e-cigarettes but should be ID’d under the Challenge 25 scheme.
“It’s really difficult to do things like those kinds of exercises in places like Shetland, because it’s difficult to find volunteers and find ways of doing it without flagging up who we are,” Marsh said.
“We’ve had people go in and come out having bought something saying, ‘but they [the shop worker] know who I am’ or ‘they know my older brother’.”
Trading standards is asking anyone with any information on any issues related to premises in Shetland to contact them on 01595 744887 or at trading.standards@shetland.gov.uk.
Anyone who wishes to report something anonymously to trading standards can do so by reporting it to Crimestoppers and flagging up that it is in Shetland.
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