Undercover teens taking on the illegal sale of vapes to children

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

Young people concerned about the “normalisation” of underage vaping have played a key role in a crackdown on the illegal sale of the products to children.

Caerphilly Youth Forum has made the matter its “priority issue” for 2024, amid its members’ worries about the “accessibility and affordability” of vapes for young people.

The youth forum warned Caerphilly County Borough Council earlier this year about the “peer pressure and normalisation of vaping among young people”, including pupils using the products on school buses.

Warnings of an “explosion” in vaping’s popularity among under-18s in the county borough fuelled the recent crackdown on underage sales.

‘Test purchases’

Caerphilly County Borough Council’s trading standards officers spent the school summer holidays carrying out a series of so-called “test purchases”, which sent teenage volunteers from the youth forum into shops to attempt to buy age-restricted items.

The council can use hidden recording equipment to gather evidence against any retailers who fail to check for ID or who sell those products to an underage customer.

This summer, just one of 132 premises failed the test – staff at every other shop refused to sell a vape to the “test purchaser”.

The council said its trading standards team is “working with” the retailer who sold the vape “to ensure future compliance”.

The results of the investigation suggest the messaging around the illegal sales of vapes to children appears to be getting through to shopkeepers.

Fail rate

A fail rate of less than 1% is a marked improvement on results from previous years and suggests a continued uptick in awareness of the rules among retailers – the fail rate for test purchases was 5% last year and 20% the year before that.

But vapes make up the vast majority of the complaints Caerphilly’s trading standards team receives about age-controlled products, accounting for nearly twice as many reports as alcohol and tobacco combined last year.

Research published in August by anti-smoking campaign group ASH found that across Britain, nearly one in five children aged 11 to 17 have tried vaping, while nearly one in 14 children in that age group currently vape.

The researchers also found “exposure” to vape promotion “remains high”, reported by nearly three-quarters of children who took part in the campaign group’s youth survey earlier this year.