Public Health intends to keep vaping under review
Rising problems with vaping and the illegal use of medicinal cannabis can be tackled by the Combined Substance Use Strategy, Public Health has said.
Speaking at the presentation of the latest annual review, director of Public Health Nicola Brink said this was a ‘living report.’
‘That is so we can respond to new issues as they emerge,’ she said.
‘Vaping is one of the issues that we’ve looked into more detail over the last year because of the emerging evidence.’
The combined strategy runs from 2021 until 2026. Dr Brink said it was producing annual reports to provide open and transparent information to islanders.
‘We feel it’s really important to provide islanders with an update on a year-by-year basis,’ she said.
Data from the young people's survey 2022 showed a worrying jump in year 10 pupils vaping more than once a week, from 3.5% to 16%.
And Dr Brink said that indicated that further action was needed.
‘Those actions are going to spread across a number of initiatives,’ she said.
‘Firstly the positive policy legislative changes that included regulation on the age to which vapes can be sold, how vapes are marketed, and of course the banning of disposable vapes, but then we’ve looked at what sort of services we’re providing as well.
'So we’re looking at the upstream policy and legislation, but then we looking at how we manage people who are vaping and indeed who become addicted to nicotine.’
Public Health programme manager Heather Ewert said it was important to remember that e-cigarettes and vapes had been on the market for almost a decade.
‘But it’s only recently become an issue as the tobacco companies have invested more money in the kind of products with all the flavours and the colours and marketed them more to children and young people,’ she said. ‘That’s when we’ve started seeing this big increase.’
The report also mentioned the growing trend for the diversion of medicinal cannabis into the community.
‘Diversion of prescription-only medication has always been part of the substances strategy,’ said Dr Brink.
‘But what we’re looking at our at particularly is reports about the diversion of medicinal cannabis and that is something that needs to be looked into further.’
