Vaping among students no safer than smoking cigarettes, say health experts

The schoolyard vape black market is so sophisticated some sellers accept cards or use apps for payments, students report.

Getting a high-nicotine blast from an electronic cigarette or “vape” is as easy as going to the toilets during lunch, school students say, as experts warn there is no evidence the flashy, brightly-coloured tubes are healthier than smoking cigarettes.

The vape black market is so sophisticated that some schoolyard sellers even accept bank cards, or use apps to ­instantly transfer cash for sales between students, in clandestine deals carried out in toilet blocks during school lunch breaks.

Vaping, or smoking an electronic cigarette, is reportedly gaining popularity among school students.

The revelations from students come after a senior schoolboy at Waverley College was suspended for allegedly heading a “pyramid scheme” using fellow kids to offload the vapes to students throughout the eastern suburbs.

One student said the battery-powered electronic cigarettes were popular due to the wide variety of flavours.

“The nicotine makes you feel good, too,” the 16-year-old said, adding it was “pretty easy” to get the vapes from fellow students.

“You just walk into the bathrooms at lunch. Some of the kids take card, so you just have to transfer the money,” he said.

Driving the popularity of the nicotine-filled vapes, which NSW Secondary Principals’ Council president Craig Peterson said was leading to students exhibiting “really edgy behaviour”, was their perceived health benefits compared to traditional cigarettes.

Eastern suburbs student Louis Steele, 16, said he did not vape although he knew “a lot” of fellow students who did it.

“I think they do think it’s healthier than smoking, when you compare the chemicals in a cigarette to a vape,” he said.

Jack, 17, told the Telegraph: “There’s always someone ­selling,” adding the thick plume of smoke meant kids were able to do tricks such as blowing smoke rings.

“The attraction is the nicotine and all the flavours,” he said. “Some kids are infat­uated with the tricks they can do.”

However, leading health experts have revealed smokers turning to e-cigarettes in the hopes of improving their health are being misled by “very thin and unconvincing evidence” while those who have never smoked are taking up schmick-looking vapes without knowing the true risks.

Leading respiratory medicine specialist Professor Matthew Peters said the only scenario in which vapes were beneficial was when they were used short-term as a means of quitting smoking.

“Switching from smoking to electronic cigarettes has not been shown to reduce proven health harms,” he said.

“There has been speculation that it’s better but in the only long-term study that was done in an Italian cohort, there was no reduction over five years in what is called smoking-related events like heart attack, stroke, vascular events, those major smoking risks.”

A student at Waverley College was suspended for allegedly heading a “pyramid scheme” involving vapes.

Australian Council on Smoking and Health director Maurice Swanson explained that those turning to long-term vaping as a healthier ­alternative were being misled because most commonly available disposable vapes contained nicotine but did not say so on packaging.

“The impact on quitting smoking is very weak,” Mr Swanson said.

“One disposable vape pod has the nicotine equivalent of 20-25 cigarettes.

“If you buy vaping pods, they say they don’t contain nicotine but they do.

“I can bet you next week’s salary that they have nicotine in them.”

Mr Swanson said the most concerning risk was that non-smokers were using vapes and getting hooked on nicotine unknowingly.

“Apart from the nicotine, you’re also inhaling the breakdown products of the device as it’s heated,” he said.

“You are also absorbing flavours. Not a single (vape) flavour in the world has been approved as safe. The TGA would never approve a butterscotch flavoured asthma inhaler and the reason is because no health authority in the world would approve them to do so.

“Kids who’ve never smoked, who start vaping, their risk of becoming lifelong smokers is three to four times if they vaped beforehand ­because they get hooked on nicotine and then they graduate from vaping to smoking.”

In NSW, adults can purchase e-cigarettes that do not contain nicotine but experts say many that claim they meet this standard actually contain nicotine.

Hayden Holland works at Vaper Choice in Surry Hills where they sell more than 400 vape flavours. Picture: Toby Zerna

Hayden Holland works at Vaper Choice Surry Hills, which bills itself as a “premium vapour lounge” and sells 400 legal flavours of non-nicotine vapes.

He said many customers had picked up vaping in an effort to cut down or stop smoking cigarettes.

“Eight out of 10 people are picking it up as an alternative to cigarettes,” he said.

He added the bright packaging and multitude of flavours had led to suggestions the product was targeted at children but he said it was no different to alco-pop style drinks.

“I’d say a lot of people think it’s targeted towards kids – but look at alcohol, you can get flavoured alco­hol,” he said.

“Everything is above board here. We check IDs, it’s not for kids.”