Rotherham Council to investigate vaping adverts and displays aimed at youngsters

Rotherham Council will work with schools to warn students of the “dangers of taking up vaping as a choice rather than as a measure to aid smoking cessation”.

Figures from Action for Smoking and Health show that in 2022, 15 per cent of 11-17 year olds had tried vaping, compared to 11 per cent in 2021 and 13 per cent in 2020.

The sale of e-cigarettes containing nicotine to under 18s is prohibited, but experts warn that vaping is becoming an “epidemic” among teenagers across the uk.

RMBC is set to investigate what can be done to crack down on the “positive and open way vaping is advertised and displayed, with at the very least calling upon vapour outlets to consider how they portray their wares that might encourage youngsters to start vaping”.

The council’s children and young people’s service will work with schools to warn students of the dangers of vaping and smoking, and support youngsters to give up.

RMBC hope to ensure that e-cigarettes can be accessed as an effective quitting aid for existing smokers, without inadvertently contributing to a growth in the uptake of vaping amongst non-smokers through ‘normalisation, or glamorisation of vaping’.

A notice of motion will be tabled at next week’s full council meeting, which calls upon Rotherham MP’s to improve funding for Public Health from the Government to crack down on smoking in general.

Figures show that Rotherham has a higher smoking prevalence rate than the national average – Approximately 16.9 per cent of Rotherham adults -around 35,400 people – were smokers in 2021 compared to 13 per cent nationally.

The motion adds that spend on tobacco control per head of population fell by 49 per cent between 2013 and 2018 within the context of overall cuts in public healths sending.

From 2017-19, there were 1,272 smoking attributable deaths in Rotherham – a rate of 271 deaths per 100,000 population.