The Consumer Choice Center has released a new report that considers existing age restrictions on the sale of vaping products and then suggests several policies to reverse low enforcement rates of current rules.
To reduce the rate of vaping by youth, the Consumer Choice Center report recommends four actions:
- Enforce strict age restrictions on vaping devices and liquids at the point of sale.
- Use modern age-verification technology for online sales.
- Learn from other industries such as alcohol and fireworks on how to improve compliance rates.
- Retail and industry should be encouraged to be more proactive with the enforcement of rules.
- Don’t punish legal adult vapers for the lack of enforcement of age restrictions.
Fred Roeder, health economist and author of the report, stated in an email that most countries have already drawn a line of when it is legal to vape (enacted age-to-purchase laws).
“We don’t face a lack of legislation but a lack of compliance with existing rules and regulations. We looked at similarly regulated industries such as alcohol and gambling and found that these tend to have smarter enforcement mechanisms,” he wrote “There are many innovative tools out there to ensure only adult customers can buy vaping products. Digital ID checks and industry initiatives to ID customers that look young are better ways to solve the problem than additional laws such as flavor bans.”