Kiwi children as young as six years old are getting addicted to vaping.
New Zealand's first-ever guidelines to tackle youth vaping were released on Friday at a conference in Wellington, where smokefree practitioner Louis Hilton told them of a six-year-old using his sibling's vapes.
"He was vaping a lot of these discarded pods and it got to the point where he was addicted, struggling in school and got really agitated. The parents didn't know what to do," Hilton said.
The parents had been referred to his services for help, and he told Newshub that it's sadly far too common.
"Unfortunately that's not a one-off. We get referrals for a lot of kids who are getting vapes - either from their friends at schools, dairies or shops, even from their parents who don't know it's a drug. It's quite shocking," he said.
The Asthma and Respiratory Foundation identified a major gap in resources to help vapers, as most services are aimed at helping adults quit smoking. So they've launched the country's first-ever guidelines for rangatahi to quit vaping.
It's a five-step pathway to help clinicians identify and discuss vaping with young people. Sharon Pihema is the foundation's Māori community liaison and runs workshops in Gisborne on the issue. Her surveys revealed some alarming data about students' vaping habits.
"They're vaping several times a day, they're vaping a very high nicotine dose, they're vaping more than the previous year and vaping at higher nicotine concentrations," Pihema said.
Her passion for the problem grew when her own daughter struggled with a vaping addiction, but Pihema couldn't find the right support or advice.
"When you get told to try sucking on a pen - that's just not good enough," she said.
- If you have more information or would like to get in contact, please email alexa.cook@wbd.com
The foundation wants more people like Pihema working in communities where vaping rangatahi is rife, but when it proposed four more roles to Te Whatu Ora, they were turned down.
The foundation's CEO Letitia Harding said it's so frustrating when it's clear that Pihema's role is so valuable.
"Even though there is so much need out there, even though we get from Te Whatu Ora themselves to ask for these workshops," she said.
A Te Whatu Ora spokesperson said it's continuing to have ongoing discussions with clinical experts and stakeholder groups to understand the need and work together to find solutions. And that it recognises the best thing people can do is be vape-free and smokefree.
"Currently there is no evidence nationally or internationally on effective vaping treatment programmes for youth," they said.
"Manatū Hauora, Te Whatu Ora and Te Aka Whai Ora developed a health promotion programme, Protect Your Breath (PYB) to encourage young people to live vape-free lives. This launched on social media and other places that reach young people in early November 2022," the spokesperson said.
The Government's been trying to crack down on vaping by bringing in two separate pieces of vaping regulation.
It includes making vaping in and near schools illegal, banning flavours from being sold in dairies, limiting the proximity of vape stores to schools, limiting nicotine levels and overall flavour descriptions and banning cheap disposable vapes.
However it's been heavily criticised by both the foundation and principals. They want to see the rules apply to existing vape shops too, and more enforcement.
Secondary Principals Association president Vaughan Couillault said the problem is not improving.
"This is about 12-year-olds who wouldn't have started smoking who have been vaping for six months because it's cool," he said.
While the new regulations are a good start, he wants to see more action by the incoming Government.
"Too many kids have still got vaping devices in their hand, one in five, and there wasn't one in five people smoking all those years ago - we've let the cat out of the bag and we need to shove it back in," he said.
A huge job when New Zealand's now one of the world's biggest vaping nations.
