If you’re a parent, youth vaping is almost certainly something you have views about.
You might have found vapes in your child’s room, seen children using them on the way home from school, or wondered how these brightly coloured products in local shops became so easy to spot.
Around one million children in Britain have tried vaping. As a parent myself, I find that deeply worrying. I bet many mums, dads and guardians reading this feel the same.
That’s why we are asking parents to share their views as part of a consultation on new rules for how vapes and other nicotine products are packaged, described and displayed.
And I’d really encourage you to take a few minutes to tell us what you think before it closes on 2 October.
The proposals include plain white packaging, much tighter limits on imagery and branding, restrictions on flavour descriptions, and stricter rules on displays in shops.
The aim is straightforward: to make these products less appealing and less visible to children.
These proposals matter because we all know nicotine is highly addictive, but we still don’t know what the long term impacts of vaping could be in 20 or 30 years’ time.
Vapes can help adults quit smoking. That role still matters. But they shouldn’t be attracting children, who have never smoked, into nicotine use.
As parents, you see the issues of youth vaping in real life. We want the rules to reflect those everyday realities.
Restricting packaging and displays aren’t the whole answer, but they matter.
There will be different views on our suggested approach, including from businesses that make and sell vapes. Those views should be heard and the proposals properly tested.
But parents’ voices must be part of discussions too, not drowned out by vested interests.
The government is already taking wider action.
The Tobacco and Vapes Act will create a smoke-free generation by making sure anyone born after 1 January 2009 can never legally be sold tobacco. Disposable vapes have been banned, and the UK’s first vaping products duty is being introduced.
This consultation is the next step: finding a way to reduce features making vaping attractive to children while keeping vapes available as a quitting aid for adults who smoke.
We don’t always get the chance to influence the world our children grow up in. But this is one of those opportunities.
So please, if you have a few minutes, take part before 2nd October.
Tell us what you see, what concerns you, and what you think would make a difference.
Because getting this right isn’t just about government policy. It’s about our children’s future. Parents and young people should have a say in what that future looks like.
You can respond to the consultation here.