E-cigarettes have ignited a health crisis among teens. Despite crackdowns by government and schools, kids are finding ways to sidestep restrictions.
Since 2021, it has been illegal to import vapes containing nicotine without a valid prescription, but most manufacturers get around this by falsely claiming that their vapes are nicotine-free. Telling the difference between a vape that contains nicotine and one that doesn’t isn’t easy. Unlike tobacco, liquid nicotine cannot be identified by sight and smell, and the Australian Border Force do not have the means, nor indeed the authorisation, to test for it on the spot.
But one of the biggest drivers of the vaping epidemic is, paradoxically, the law. For years, vapes have been subject to a hopelessly complex and deeply dysfunctional web of regulations and overlapping jurisdictions, with multiple state and federal agencies having different levels of involvement and responsibility.
When I tell my 17-year-old about the government’s prohibition of retail sales, she shakes her head. “Every year, the government says, ’We’re implementing new bans, and we’re like, ‘Yeah, no you’re not.’ Because it’s a joke. There has never been anything that has ever prevented kids from accessing vapes.”have birthed a new generation of nicotine addicts, but they have also proved rich pickings for young marketeers.
Then there’s “blinkering”. “Blinkering is when you hit a vape so hard in one go that the light at the bottom of it starts blinking, which shows that you’ve pretty much killed the battery,” says Jade. “People go, ‘Yeah, you blinkered it!’ ” One girl tells me that if you use a vape too quickly, the battery can heat up and burn. “You can taste it, like burnt tinfoil,” she explains.
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