‘Taking over food courts and bus stops’: Qld losing fight against kids vaping

Kids in uniform are openly flouting the law and continuing to brazenly vape in open spaces despite multiple crackdown attempts.

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Queensland is losing the battle against vaping as kids continue to brazenly vape in the open despite multiple crackdown attempts from the state and federal governments.

Schools have resorted to giving harsh lessons on the dangers of vaping, which principals say is helping to turn the tide, but experts admit it is still “incredibly easy” for children to obtain vapes.

Social media is making it easier than ever for children to buy vapes, with the illegal products being hidden in plain sight.

The revelation comes as staff from some of Queensland’s major shopping hubs say they are sick and tired of vaping kids taking over food courts and bus interchanges.

This was witnessed by The Courier-Mail at Westfield Chermside and Westfield Carindale, with teens wearing school uniforms openly vaping in public spaces.

School students seen vaping at a bus stop near Westfield Chermside.

Muffin Break worker Alexandra said she had frequently seen teenagers in uniform vaping around the bus stop and in the outside areas of Chermside Shopping Centre.

One worker at Westfield Carindale said kids sat in the food court and “congregate, vaping” on a daily basis.

Queensland Catholic Education Commission executive director Allan Blagaich said there was a concern across Catholic schools about the “increased prevalence” of vaping among young people.

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said there were 147 Environmental Health Officers who monitored compliance to vaping and smoke laws, responding to complaints from the community and undertaking proactive inspections of retailers.

In the 2023-24 financial year to date there have been 92 complains of sales to minors, an increase from 84 in 2022-23. The University of Queensland researcher into youth substance, Dr Carmen Lim, said sellers disguised vape’s as fruit on marketplace, and kids were able to easily purchase it and get it delivered straight to their door.

“These types of posts are a bit covert, so they don’t actually put a picture of the puff bars, but instead they disguise it as a fruit,” she said.

“So you might be getting a lot of fruit-related posts but they are actually e-cigarette devices … they are fruit flavoured so they use fruit to denote the flavours of the puff bars. So what kids can do is they can actually direct message the sellers and a lot of these posts will offer a bulk-buy purchases, they can even deliver it to your doorstep.

Schools are running programs to educate kids on the dangers of vaping.

“So I think that’s problematic because none of the posts are age restricted.”

Dr Lim said more policing of social media should be a priority because not enough was being done currently.

Griffith University Adjunct Senior Fellow Dr Timo Dietrich said it was still extremely easy to get vapes from shops.

“I have some people that are frequenting these shops, and not a lot has really changed,” he said.

“As part of that new legislation, existing stock is able to be sold and I think it’s very hard to enforce what’s existing stock and what’s come across the border last week.”

Dr Dietrich is the founder of Blurred Minds, an initiative creating vape education workshops in schools. In 2023, 160 workshops on vaping were conducted alone.

While some schools opt to bring Blurred Minds in for workshops, others are using Dr Dietrich’s modules.

The Blurred Minds Academy supports 79 Catholic schools to deliver resources on vaping. Other schools such as Ripley Valley State Secondary College are working to combat vape use by teaching more education units. While the curriculum currently targets drug and alcohol education, it is not mandatory to teach the dangers of vaping, but many schools do it themselves.

It is understood a number of schools are trying to teach the negative impacts of vaping.

Ripley Valley State Secondary College principal Brendan Krueger said they first targeted year 9s last year as a trial and have this year expanded the education from year 7 to year 12.

“We obviously did have a number of students that would vape in the bathrooms. But we just knew through community and kind of parent feedback that this was an issue that our students were facing,” he said.

Queensland is losing the battle against vaping.

“They now do a unit on vaping, so the students have to research what is vaping, what is found in all the different vapes.

“Actually getting them informed about what it is, about what they are using and the long-term health risk and culminating activity.”

A Department of Education spokesman said vapes were banned in all state schools, with new legislation also making school carparks smoke-free zone.

“Vaping is a broad and complex public health issue that requires a focused community-wide response – the solutions don’t start and stop at school gates,” he said.

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said the government had invested $2m in 2023-24 to significantly increase vape compliance.

“Our ongoing efforts to stop the sale of illegal tobacco and vaping products are proving highly effective, with the number of inspections, surveillance activities, and enforcement actions continuing to increase,” she said.

Originally published as ‘Taking over food courts and bus stops’: Qld losing fight against kids vaping