Experts say vape store crackdown measures are not having the desired effect, after a study found most stores were selling outlawed vapes and failing to check IDs.
An Otago University mystery shopper study of vape stores in Wellington found half of the 74 stores asked the 20-year-old mystery shopper for ID, and a third of those proceeded with the sale anyway when they could not provide ID.
Vaping regulation changes brought by the previous government in 2023 limit nicotine strength allowed in disposable vapes to 20 milligrams per millilitres.
Study author Dr Jude Ball told Nine to Noon stores were flouting regulations to get rid of old stock, selling vapes with nicotine levels now too high to be legal under the new regulations, at bargain basement prices.
"We found retailers were quite open about it, they were like, 'These are not legal anymore, that's why we're selling them off cheap'."
Ball said some stores were even selling vapes containing 50 milligrams of nicotine in 20 milligram boxes, in order to give the appearance of meeting regulations.
On top of that, price wars were making it cheaper and more accessible.
"If you go to any vape websites, there's always two-for-one deals or 50 percent off, 25 percent off, so it's a really competitive market."
Some were selling outlawed vapes for as little as $2.50.
Technological advancements were shifting patterns in behaviour.
"Initially we saw a lot of young people, like high school age, trying vapes, vaping experimentally, but not many of them were becoming daily vapers," Ball said.
"But what we see now is that conversion rate to daily vaping is much higher."
As well as making it easy to start, the accessibility of vaping was also making it hard to quit.
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Lochie Cowles started vaping when he was 16 and after trying to quit unsuccessfully a couple of times, he managed to at the age of 21.
He now works with the Hā Collective, a group of young Māori and Pasifika working to reduce the harms of youth vaping.
He said the peer pressure was a factor in picking it up, and it was a lot cheaper and less obvious than smoking.
"More recently, a lot more people have just gone straight to vaping," he said.
The key to quitting was distraction, he said, but it was made harder by how accessible and easy it was to keep it up.
Catherine Manning, regional manager for Takiri Mai te Ata Regional Stop Smoking Service, told Nine to Noon the messaging around vapes had been wrong from the start.
"When you use terms like 'it's safer than smoking', you can minimise the risks with the use of it. What you're telling these populations that are using it is 'it's not as harmful'."
The lack of regulation and restriction had been "horrendous for families", she said.
Commonly it was children aged eight, nine and 10 who were most commonly affected by addiction due to a vape being in the house, she said.
This was below the age of consent, meaning parental permission was needed to treat the addiction.
Manning said better enforcement was needed for vape stores.
"Legislation is only as good as the support that goes with it," she said. "If you don't have the enforcement officers on the ground to be able to do the checks and balances, then they're going to continue doing what they're doing."
The Vaping Industry Association of New Zealand (VIANZ) said it was "unsurprised" at retailers were not complying.
Its chair Jonathan Devery said they "hear crickets chirping in response to our regular reports to the Vaping Regulatory Authority (VRA) of non-compliant products and retailers".
He blamed the prevalence of non-compliant products on confusion around the regulations, and a lack of enforcement.
In August 2023, the Ministry of Health admitted it had misinterpreted the regulations as prescribing a maximum nicotine strength of 28.5mg/mL, rather than the actual 50mg/mL, and had unlawfully threatened industry participants who had interpreted the regulations correctly, he said.
"We advised that confusion had been created by the ministry's unlawful threats, but thanks to an ongoing refusal by the ministry to publicly recognise its failings and issue communications to industry correcting and clarifying the change to the nicotine strength of vaping products this issue remains and is growing."
Devery said it was positive the coalition government appeared to be taking their concerns more seriously and increased fines to a level that should act as a deterrent, but agreed regulations without enforcement were meaningless.
"It is clear to us the VRA is not up for the job. It appears overwhelmed and is failing to take action on obvious retail breaches," he said.
"For legitimate retailers who are adhering to the regulations it is extremely frustrating, and we are concerned that if the government doesn't get a handle on this soon the black market, which up till now has been negligible, will run away from us, much as we have seen in Australia."
