Captain Williard’s response to Colonel Kurtz’s question about his methods, in Apocalypse Now, is among the most classic lines in cinema. Kurtz, who had clearly gone mad, asked Willard whether Willard saw Kurtz’s methods as unsound. Willard replied, “I don’t see any method at all, sir.”
The line came to mind while reading the cabinet paper on proposed vaping reforms.
The government is clearly responding to schools and parents’ concerns about youth vaping.
Action on Smoking and Health’s Year 10 survey showed that regular vaping prevalence peaked in 2021 at just over 20% of students and declined to just over 16% by 2023. The 2024 figures are not yet available. Similarly, the proportion of Year 10 students who reported ever having tried vaping peaked in 2021 at just over 40% and declined to 37.5% since then. In both cases, ASH reports a statistically significant decline since the 2021 peak.
Among students who report never having smoked, less than 5% vape daily and less than 10% vape regularly.
There has been a real increase. So, notwithstanding a subsequent more minor recent decline, there is a potential problem to address.
There are two potential ways that youths might access vapes, despite it being illegal to sell them to under-18s. They might find shops that do not check IDs closely, and they might secure supply from older friends or family.
Targeting those channels would seem sensible as a method of reducing youth vaping.
The government could step up retail enforcement and set lengthy bans on sales by outlets that are unable to figure out how to check IDs.
Social supply is trickier. But there is precedent in New Zealand’s alcohol rules.
New Zealand has long made it illegal to sell alcohol to youths. In 2012, the government set the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. From then on, supplying alcohol to minors (for example, an 18-year-old handing a 16-year-old a beer) without parental permission could draw a fine of up to $2000.
Youth drinking, especially hazardous youth drinking, has declined sharply since then. It is always hard to tell how much of that is due to the changes in legislation; youth drinking was also declining prior to the legislation. But the decline in hazardous drinking among youths over the decade since the social supply rules came into effect has been larger than the decline among adults.
The most recent statistics for 2022/23 show about half as many youths aged 15-17 report hazardous drinking patterns as compared to 2011/12. The number of youths reporting alcohol consumption also declined.
The official statistics probably understate the real decline in hazardous youth drinking because the Ministry of Health changed how it administered the survey in 2015/16. Had the newer way of asking the questions been used in 2011/12, reported hazardous drinking in that year would have been higher. So, the decline since then has also been larger.
Applying alcohol’s social supply rules to vaping seems a promising approach.
What has the government proposed instead?
The government will ban vaping products that are more affordable and that are easier to use – for everyone, adults included. The measures seem to aim to reduce youth vaping by increasing the cost of vapes. But if the government wanted to increase the cost of vaping, excise would make more sense than banning specific types of vapes.
Vaping is a lot less risky than smoking, but there are ways for vaping to go wrong. If someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing mixes their own vape fluid in a tank-based system, they could get a higher dose than intended. Or they could experiment with adding things into the mix that should not be there. Or they could let the tank run dry, resulting in overheated coils and potentially noxious fumes.
Self-contained disposable vaping products and pod-based devices avoid those risks. They are designed to avoid hot dry heating coils. The vaping fluid is pre-mixed and cannot be adjusted. But those are the vaping devices that the government is going to ban.
Let’s say that again. The government is proposing to ban the safest devices while leaving the potentially riskier ones on the market, and says that it is doing this because it wants to protect kids.
At the same time, the government will prohibit new vape shops within 300 metres of early childhood education centres. I suspect that few under-5s walk into vape shops and convince the clerk that they’re really 18. The Regulatory Impact Statement says it amounts to a de facto ban on new shops except in rural areas or the fringes of some suburban areas.
There are obvious practicable measures the government could take to reduce youth access to vapes. Instead, the government is banning the safest forms of vapes while encouraging adult vapers to flip back to smoking.
I don’t see any method at all here — only moral panic.
To read the full article on The Post website, click here.