Highland Trading Standards team highlight risks from disposable vaping products
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The Highland Council’s Trading Standards team is highlighting the dangers of disposable vaping products and warning consumers to be aware.
Their warning comes following the findings on a comprehensive Scotland-wide project that Highland officers participated in.
Coordinated by the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS) an in-depth look at single-use, or disposable, vaping products was carried out during October to December 2021. Findings show that officers found a wide range of non-compliant devices, with both safety and health risks to users.
In Highland, Trading Standard officers visited premises that sell these products throughout the area and over 3000 disposable vaping devices were removed from sale as they lacked necessary labels, instructions, and warnings. In addition, 121 disposable vaping devices were seized and destroyed as they had illegal levels of vaping fluid.
David MacKenzie, the council’s Trading Standards manager said: “This work is all about protecting Highland consumers, especially our young people.
"These devices are often brightly coloured and flavoured to be appealing to children. They usually contain the maximum legal amount of nicotine which also makes them extremely addictive. Disposable vapes also raise environmental concerns as they are all made of single-use plastic and contain a battery therefore cannot be safely disposed of in household waste or easily recycled."
He added: “Vaping can be helpful to get current smokers to quit but there is a real risk that vaping can also be a gateway for young people into nicotine addiction. The sale of these products to young people is not acceptable and Highland Council Trading Standards takes these matters very seriously.”
The Highland Council was just one of a number of local authorities who took part. In total 721 premises selling products were visited and 88,839 disposable vaping devices were removed from sale as they did not comply with regulations and a further 3,683 devices were seized as they had a capacity of over the legal limit of 2ml.
Anyone with concerns on vaping products that they come across can report them by contacting Trading Standards partner agency Advice Direct Scotland on telephone 0808 164 6000 or at www.consumeradvice.scot/ or via the webpage www.highland.gov.uk/agerestrictedsales
The full SCOTSS report can be found by visiting www.scotss.org/press/vapeproject2022.pdf
