A service to help young people quit vaping is urgently needed to save thousands of teenagers from lifelong nicotine addiction, a charity has said.
The Irish Heart Foundation said there is “a youth vaping epidemic” in Ireland and dedicated support was needed to help young people quit one of the most addictive substances on the planet.
In its pre-budget submission, the charity also called for the price of cigarettes to increase to €20 a pack and new taxes on vapes set at a sufficient level to deter young people from taking them up.
“We know that many young people are looking for help to quit vaping and from programmes in the US that when such help is available, it can be highly effective,” said Irish Heart Foundation’s director of advocacy Chris Macey.
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“Failing to provide this support in the face of a youth vaping epidemic the State has not done enough so far to prevent, would be tantamount to abandoning thousands of teenagers at risk of long-term addiction.”
Mr Macey said the HSE is continuing to receive calls across all of its stop smoking services from people looking for help with quitting vapes.
But despite the growing demand, he said Quit.ie is not resourced to provide the service, which requires different approaches than traditional smoking cessation services to be most effective.
The Irish Heart Foundation also pointed to data from youth information and support platform Spunout which has received thousands of views of its webpage on the health effects of smoking and vaping, with the search query “how to quit vaping?” the biggest driver of traffic to this content.
The charity also said that a US programme, This is Quitting, launched by public health non-governmental organisation the Truth Initiative, to counter the rise of youth vaping, has helped more than 750,000 young vapers.
“Vaping can affect teenage brain development, damage blood vessels, cause high blood pressure, changes in heart rhythm and have serious effects on the respiratory system,” Mr Macey said.
“Worst of all, research shows it is a gateway to smoking, which is still claiming 12 lives every day in Ireland, making it our biggest cause of preventable death.
“Our concern is that the increase in vaping, relentlessly marketed to teenagers with around 16,000 different flavours, will increase smoking rates and expose our young people to premature death from tobacco-related diseases.”
The foundation is also calling for a budget allocation of more than €1 million to develop a vaping prevention information campaign and a research programme to inform the development of a vaping cessation programme.
It wants an increase of €3.25 in the price of cigarettes to bring the cost to €20 euro per pack.
Mr Macey also said smokers should be given more help by the State to quit as they pay €1 billion in additional taxes, while annual antismoking measures amount to €17 million. – PA