Experts have requested stricter regulations on e-cigarette marketing due to an increase in children being exposed to product displays in stores.
Their proposal is to hide vaping products from minors.
Last year, two-thirds of teenagers aged 11 to 18 reported seeing vapes in supermarkets, up from 57 percent in 2018.
The percentage of teenagers who saw tobacco products on sale decreased from 67 to 59 percent.
Dr. Anthony Laverty, the lead researcher from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, stated: “These findings indicate that children are being exposed to tobacco and e-cigarettes at alarming rates, and that access is convenient.
“It is crucial to enforce existing laws on tobacco display and take action to limit e-cigarette advertising, as well as ensuring that vapes are not visible or accessible to children.”
Selling vapes to individuals under 18 is illegal, yet NHS data for 2021 indicated that nearly 10 percent of 11 to 15-year-olds have used them.
The team at Imperial studied data from Action on Smoking and Health, revealing that 43 percent of children who used e-cigarettes obtained them from small stores, 17 percent purchased them online, and 12 percent obtained them from supermarkets.
Prof Nicholas Hopkinson, a co-author of the study from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial, suggested implementing an excise tax on disposable vapes “to prevent them from being available at low prices accessible to children.”
Vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking; however, the full health effects are still not completely understood. The research was funded by Cancer Research UK and published in the Tobacco Control journal.