Aotearoa's first guidelines to help youth quit vaping have been unveiled, a guide aimed at health professionals who work with teens and young adults with addictions.
The guide includes advice for screening, assessment, behavioural support, pharmacotherapy and follow-up.
Letitia Harding, chief executive at The Asthma and Respiratory Foundation, said there was a lack of support available for youth addictions.
"We have been advocating for a long time for dedicated support services to help our young people quit vaping."
About one in five high school students regularly vape and, for Māori high schoolers, it's about one in three.
Vapes began to flood the commercial market here in 2017, promoted as a tool to help cigarette smokers quit.
A survey last year of more than 2000 rangatahi found the main reasons for vaping include: relaxation, enjoying the variety of flavours, connecting with friends, learning vaping tricks and genuinely liking it.
The ASH Year 10 Snapshot showed regular student vapers went from 12 percent to 20 percent between 2019 and 2022.
Smoking cessation services are funded for those over 16.
"It's our hope that these guidelines will assist health professionals to support AYA [adolescents and young adults], who are now dependent on vapes, to become nicotine-free." Harding said.
Sharon Pihema, āpiha takawaenga Māori/Māori community liaison for The Foundation, said rangatahi trying to get help through Quitline and their GPs have got no support.
"It's almost as if they need to start smoking so they can get help to quit vaping."
Pihema said they need one-on-one support, a plan and follow-up to "make sure they can successfully quit vaping and lead healthier lives".
Professor Hayden McRobbie, from the University of New South Wales, said the new guidelines are a positive step.
"There is currently a dearth of evidence for vaping cessation, however these guidelines provide some practical tips that health professionals will find helpful."
The outgoing Labour Government took some steps to crack down on disposable vapes.
"From August this year, all vaping devices sold in New Zealand will need to have removeable or replaceable batteries," said then-Health Minister Ayesha Verrall earlier in 2023.
Dr Verrall also capped the number of stores to 600 nationwide and increased penalties for retailers selling to those underage.
Vapes now need "child-safety mechanisms" too, while retailers have to apply for a licence to sell vape products, and no shops are allowed within 300 metres of a kura, school or marae.
"Vaping has been an important tool to assist adult smokers to give up, however we have seen the number of young people vaping daily more than triple between 2019-2021," Dr Verrall said in August.
She also said a balance was needed between having a smoking cessation tool available and making sure youth couldn't easily access it.
The law was intended to get rid of single-use disposables entirely, due to their cheap price (as little as $10), attractive flavours to children and negative environmental effects.
However, disposables are still widely available at most vape retailers, due to some parts of the law not having taken effect yet.
After December 21, retailers can only sell vapes if they have a removable battery, maximum of 20mg/mL nicotine and child safety mechanisms
Disposables cannot be thrown in regular household rubbish or recycling due to their internal batteries being a fire hazard, according to FENZ.
You can download the new guidelines from The Foundation's website called Don’t Get Sucked In.
