Vapers in Ireland can now have their say from today on the future regulation of vaping products.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has brought legislation before the Oireachtas that will ban under-18s from buying e-cigarettes.
Minister of State Hildeguarde Naughton said the Department of Health wants to know if the public favors further restrictions as well.
“I have given a commitment to further legislation in this area,” she said, according to NewsTalk.
“That’s why we’re launching this consultation today; it runs until January 5th to get people’s views about what other measures we need to introduce in order to decrease the appeal of nicotine and inhaling products.”
Over the next four weeks, the public will be consulted on a number of areas, including:
The display of nicotine-inhaling products in shops
Nicotine-inhaling product flavours
The appearance of nicotine inhaling products
Proxy sales of tobacco and nicotine-inhaling products
Smoking in outdoor dining areas
Extending smoke-free restrictions to vaping
Increasing the age of sale for tobacco products
Increasing the price of vapes
Naughton wants “as many people as possible” to engage in public consultation over the coming weeks.
The public consultation is now open for submissions for a six-week period until Friday, January 5, 2024.
The smokers’ rights group Forest has criticized recommendations to regulate the sector further, saying there is a risk that policy will be created “in haste.”
Forest spokesperson John Mallon said: “We urge the government not to succumb to some moral panic about vaping and to regulate reduced risk products with a light touch that doesn’t impact on their effectiveness as a safer alternative to cigarettes.”
More than a third of Irish people aged 13 to 16 years old currently vape without having smoked before, reports The Irish Times, citing new research commissioned by Foroige Sligo.
After questioning 900 young people aged 10 to 24, the study found that across all age groups, there is a link between appearing “cool” and vaping. It also found that vaping allows some young people to feel connected to their peers.
Many respondents felt that the marketing of vapes targets young people with a “toy-like” attraction and inventiveness of products in terms of flavor, color, and personalization.
Josephine Lally, an independent social researcher who conducted the study, said she was struck by how vaping served as a tool for participation in social groups.
“It has become a part of their day to day life,” she was quoted as saying. “If you mention conventional cigarettes they’d say, ‘no way, I wouldn’t smoke’. They perceive vaping to be safer and that is an issue,” she said.
To tackle youth vaping, the research recommended consistency in public health messaging and a direct campaign to inform young people and their families about vaping.
Ireland increased the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes by €0.75 ($0.80) and announced a new tax on vaping products for next year, reports The Irish Times. Other tobacco products will be subject to a pro-rate increase.
The move “supports public health policy to reduce smoking levels in Irish society,” according to Finance Minister Michael McGrath.
“In light of public health interests, continuing delays to the revision of the Tobacco Products Tax Directive and the Program for government commitment to tax e-cigarettes and vaping products, I am proposing to introduce a domestic tax on these products [e-cigarettes and vaping products] in next year’s budget,” said McGrath.
“Considerable preparatory work” by the Department of Finance and Revenue will be necessary to draft the underpinning legislation, he said.
“Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances on the planet, and there has been an explosion in youth use of e-cigarettes that has been further fueled by the advent of disposable vapes,” said Chris Macey, director of advocacy with the Irish Heart Foundation. “We can’t afford to wait a moment longer than necessary to impose this tax.”
The Irish Heart Foundation called on the finance minister last week to introduce a €0.10 per milliliter tax on e-liquid.
Smokers’ rights group warned against unintended consequences. “Annual tax hikes on tobacco are punishing consumers for enjoying a perfectly legitimate habit,” said John Mallon, spokesperson for Forest Ireland. “Not only does it discriminate against consumers on lower incomes, [but] it will drive even more smokers to the black market.” Mallon said smokers “don’t deserve” the excise increase.
“Legitimate retailers will lose business to criminal gangs, and smokers who stay within the law will be further punished compared to those who, understandably, buy their tobacco from illicit traders,” he said.
The Irish music festival Electric Picnic has banned the use of single-use disposable e-cigarettes ahead of the event this weekend.
The music and art festival taking place in Stradbally, County Laois, from September 1 to 3. It issued a statement warning attendees that single-use disposable e-cigarettes will be confiscated if found in their possession as they enter the festival this Friday, according to the Independent.
Taking to social media, the organizers of the festival said the ban was made in order to “protect the land” where the festival is being held.
“Disposable vapes are made of a mixed compound of materials making them very difficult to recycle and hazardous if not placed in the correct waste stream,” the statement said. “Please do not bring single-use disposable vapes as they may be confiscated on entry. They pollute the environment and incorrect disposal of these can be hazardous at waste centers.”
After a two year gap due to the pandemic, Electric Picnic resumed last year with almost 70,000 people who attended the event.
The festival announced on social media that Irish rock band The Script will be performing over the festival weekend, making this their first performance in Ireland following the death of their guitarist Mark Sheehan in April this year.
This year’s sold out event will be headlined by Billie Eilish, The Killers, Niall Horan and Fred Again.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a UK health authority, has warned the public against the use of a number of e-cigarette products due to illegal levels of nicotine found in Ireland.
Irish retailers have been ordered to remove the two products from sale and to issue a recall to customers, reports the Irish Times.
The two products are both disposable MK Bar 7000s from the brand McKesse, with separate flavors, Blue & Razz Ice and Green Apple, subject to the warning.
The products contain more than the permitted amount of nicotine of two percent or 20mg/ml.
The HSE’s environmental health service, the national tobacco control office, has submitted an alert to the European Safety Gate, the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products.
This is the second alert submitted by the environmental health service to the EU in recent weeks.
“I therefore must remind manufacturers and importers of electronic cigarettes and refill containers (e-liquids), it is their responsibility to ensure that they fully comply with all legislative requirements,” said Maurice Mulcahy, regional chief environmental health officer in the HSE.
Anyone who has purchased these products has been advised to avoid their use return them to the shop from which they were bought.
Retailers have been instructed to issue a recall notice on their premises and online, both on retail websites and social media. Shops have also been asked to supply the HSE with supplier traceability details of the relevant products.
Vaping is beginning to take hold in Ireland’s smaller cities, but combustibles are still king in Dublin.
By Timothy S. Donahue
Going on a trip to Ireland, I had expectations. I thought the vaping community would be small and just learning about new products coming to market. No. That wasn’t how it was at all. In Ireland, and I imagine it’s the exact same thing one could witness across the entire European Union, people understand that vaping is better than smoking combustibles. Many former cigarette smokers, an estimated 200,000, have already made the switch.
According to a 2021 survey from Eurobarometer, Ireland has the highest rate of people who use e-cigarettes in the European Union at, 7 percent, while the EU average is 2 percent. There seemed to be a lot of vapers across Ireland. Media reports suggest that Ireland has a youth vaping problem. When a vape shop owner in Dublin was asked about this, he said that the people who vape are mostly former smokers, but there are youth who would have started smoking combustible cigarettes that instead started vaping.
This was evident in Killarney, a town of 15,000 in southwest Ireland. It also has about 1.7 million tourists per year. College kids were vaping here. They were also smoking combustible marijuana. They were also drinking at noon on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and so on. It’s Ireland. Drinking is sort of a thing. I asked a few students if they would be smoking combustible cigarettes if vaping didn’t exist. The answer was an overwhelming yes. It’s university; nicotine use is a thing too. Just two years ago, everyone smoked combustibles.
Not anymore. Vaping is the way today. Many said they even have their parents, who were two-pack-a-day to three-pack-a-day smokers, vaping now. The older folks like the simplicity of the pods. The younger group likes the flavor varieties in disposables. Walking the streets of downtown, you could witness vapers from a variety of age groups and economic backgrounds. Flavors are also extremely popular.
“The older folks want the tobacco taste first,” a college student said. “Now, they vape a while, and they don’t want that taste; my mom loves the watermelon now. She’s stopped smoking cigarettes completely and now just vapes. She used to smoke two packs a day.” Watermelon is the favorite flavor in Ireland, followed by Blue Ice, a straw poll of shops in Killarney and Dublin has confirmed.
Ireland had no age restrictions on the purchase of vaping products until recently. In November of 2022, the country’s minister for health, Stephen Donnelly, and the minister for public health, Frank Feighan, received government approval to introduce additional restrictions on the sale and advertising of nicotine inhaling products, such as e-cigarettes.
Under the new proposals, the sale of e-cigarettes and related vaping products became prohibited from self-service vending machines, from temporary or mobile premises and at places or events for children. In addition, advertisements for e-cigarettes are now prohibited on public transport, in cinemas and near schools.
At the time the proposal was announced, Feighan said the legislation was necessary because tobacco smoking continues to kill approximately 4,500 people in the island country each year. “We recognize that nicotine inhaling products are used by some adult smokers to assist them to quit tobacco smoking,” he said. “However, we are clear that these products are of no benefit to our children and young people or to nonsmokers, and that is why we are taking this action.”
All Irish and EU vaping devices and e-liquids are regulated by the Tobacco Products Directive 2. The Tobacco Products Directive regulates nicotine strengths, bottle sizes and ensures that communications about products are factual and clear. The ingredients that make up all Irish regulated vaping products must be provided to the Health Service Executive, with detailed information, including chemical studies and risk assessments.
These regulations act as an important barrier to any products that do not adhere to EU standards entering the Irish market and can be contrasted sharply with the absence of similar regulations in the U.S. and elsewhere, according to Vape Business Ireland (VBI), the largest vapor industry trade association in Ireland.
Credit: TS Donahue
VBI is advocating the Irish government to consider more evidence-based policymaking decisions, which in turn will allow for more evidence-based regulation of vaping products in Ireland. The trade group wants the government to “deliver effective, evidence-based and balanced regulation of vaping products,” according to its leadership.
There were at least four vape shops in Killarney. None of the owners would speak to me on the record because they said they aren’t “trying to call attention to themselves.” The truth is probably more along the lines of the massive distrust of the media that Ireland has. Owners probably believed I didn’t just want to know about vaping in Ireland and what types of products were popular and that I instead had more dubious plans for this article.
One shop attendant, Karen, said that most of her customers are college-aged; however, many of them were buying combustibles from her store until vaping became more popular in the country around 2020. She thinks youth are going to experiment with things like drinking, drugs and nicotine and that if there are safer ways to consume these products, government regulations shouldn’t hinder their availability.
According to the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR), the overall smoking prevalence in Ireland has decreased since 2006. More than 23 percent of the adult population in Ireland are current smokers, down from 29 percent in 2006. This means there are now approximately 893,778 smokers in the country. An estimated 26 percent of men still smoke combustibles, and for women, the figure is an estimated 21 percent.
In Ireland, there are 265,500 vapers in the country, giving an adult vaping prevalence of 6.7 percent, according to the GSTHR. There is a requirement to ensure that vape packaging contains a health warning and vaping devices can be purchased without a prescription. There are no legal restrictions on their use in public places. Heated-tobacco products cannot be marketed, and the situation is “quite complicated” for snus. While it is illegal to import snus for trade or to buy the product online, it is possible to import it for personal use.
In Dublin, it seemed that combustibles were still king. A short walk around the city, and there are cigarette smokers everywhere. There were also cigarette butts littering the streets everywhere we walked. Places like Temple Bar, an insanely popular tourist neighborhood littered with drinking establishments where few true Dubliners visit anymore, hundreds of people were smoking cigarettes and marijuana openly, and vapers could be seen mixed in the crowd but in much lower numbers.
There are an estimated 50-plus vape shops in Dublin; however, it seemed like a lot more. Still, no vape shop owner or employee would speak with me on the record. Vaping products could also be found at many discount shops that sold everything from shampoo to clothing throughout Ireland.
There was even a vape shop in the small fishing village of Howth, a suburb of Dublin. While we only went to see Dublin and various places around County Kerry where Killarney is situated, it wasn’t hard to find vaping products anywhere we visited. One cab driver told me that he was sure everyone in Killarney drank and used nicotine in some form or another and that vaping is definitely more popular than combustible cigarettes in the small town.
Overall, the rising popularity of vaping in Ireland can’t be denied. The harm reduction benefits of vaping are widely known, and even many cigarette smokers told Vapor Voice they wanted to quit combustibles and have or would try vaping products to try to end their compulsion to smoke cigarettes. It’s quite the contrast to the United States, where many doctors still believe nicotine causes cancer and are skeptical of the harm reduction benefits of vaping.
One of the largest tobacco companies in the world has initiated High Court proceedings against the health minister and attorney-general in Ireland.
BAT, the owner of the Irish business PJ Carroll, is seeking to bring a judicial review against a decision by the European Union to ban flavored heated tobacco products (HTPs).
The ban, first proposed by the European Commission in June, took effect last month. The case is being taken by PJ Carroll and Nicoventures, another BAT subsidiary that produces next-generation tobacco products, according to The Times.
The European Union on Nov. 3 published the directive officially banning flavors in heated tobacco product throughout the Union.
The publication followed the end of the scrutiny period on Oct. 29, during which neither the European Council nor the European Parliament raised objections to the ban.
The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and the Minister for Public Health, Frank Feighan, received government approval to introduce additional restrictions on the sale and advertising of nicotine inhaling products such as e-cigarettes.
Under the new proposals, the sale of e-cigarettes and related vaping products will be prohibited from self-service vending machines, from temporary or mobile premises and at places or events for children, according to a press release. In addition, advertisements for e-cigarettes will be prohibited on public transport, in cinemas and near schools.
“These measures are designed to protect our children and young people from starting to vape,” said Donnelly. “We recognize that nicotine is a highly addictive drug, and we are acting today to make these products less accessible to our young people and to remove the advertising for these products from our children’s everyday lives.”
The proposals will be incorporated into the Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill which is currently being drafted. The Bill is expected to be finalised and published by year-end. The legislation will be designed to regulate any product that can be used for the consumption of nicotine-containing vapour or any component of that product.
The Bill already contains measures to ban the sale of nicotine inhaling products to those under the age of 18 and to introduce a licensing system for the retail sale of tobacco products and nicotine inhaling products. Other measures contained in the Bill include:
prohibiting the sale of tobacco products and nicotine inhaling products by persons under 18 years of age
prohibiting the sale of tobacco products from self-service vending machines, from temporary or mobile units and at events or locations for children
introducing minimum suspension periods for retailers convicted of offences
introducing fixed penalty notices for offences
The Minister of State with responsibility for Public Health, Well Being and the National Drugs Strategy, Frank Feighan, welcomed the government’s approval of the measures.
“Tobacco smoking continues to kill approximately 4,500 people in our country each year,” he said. “We recognize that nicotine inhaling products are used by some adult smokers to assist them to quit tobacco smoking. However, we are clear that these products are of no benefit to our children and young people or to non-smokers and that is why we are taking this action today.”
The sale of e-cigarettes and vaping products to under-18s is set to be banned in Ireland.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is to seek Cabinet approval to ban the sale of “nicotine inhaling products” to those aged under 18 from early in the new year, according to Irish media.
Legislation is at an advanced stage and the minister will seek Cabinet approval to introduce a ban on the sale of vaping products to under-18s early next year.
Donnelly will also restrict the types of retailers that can sell vaping products, reducing the number of vape shops.
He also intends to curb the advertising of nicotine-inhaling products near schools. This will also apply to a number of other settings frequented by children and young teenagers.
A ban on advertisements for vaping instruments and CBD oils will also apply on public transport.
The intention is to limit children’s exposure to commercial messages “normalizing or glamourizing” the purchase and use of e-cigarettes, a source said.
Single use vapes have been described as “worsening the world” amid plans for their ban by Minister for State Ossian Smyth.
The Minister stated that single use disposable vapes could be banned under the Circular Economy Act or the single use plastic directive.
However, Smyth said that a ban would not come into effect before consultations with the general public and sellers took place. He told listeners on RTE’s Morning Ireland that vapes had now become the default option for smokers, as they are typically half the cost of cigarettes.
“If you were at the Electric Picnic festival earlier this summer, you would’ve seen these brightly coloured tubes all over the ground,” he said. “They’re everywhere and they are an innovation that has made the world a worse place.”
The Green Party politician also admitted that a complete ban would be unlikely as people would still attempt to purchase single use vapes online. However, he reassured listeners that it would “massively reduce” their purchase and ultimate benefit public health.
