GOODBYE, VAPE: NEW LEGISLATION

The uprise in vape popularity seems to continue with the result of presented bills discussed in recent news. The Department of Health is cracking down on the variations of places where one may use these nicotine products.

This past Tuesday, specialist Dr. Catherine Egbe spoke about the details of this up-and-coming legislation: “Once this bill becomes law, smoking in a public, indoor area will be outlawed, as will smoking at home or in a car while in the presence of a non-smoker or child,” Jacaranda FM reported on.

Disobedience of this law could lead up to a year’s worth of jail time.  However, this ruling has not been passed yet. Egbe also wants a nicotine warning to take up most of the spacing of the packaging of E-cigarettes or tobacco product.

Although the bill might be perceived as useless at the moment, there is still research to back up the statistics of commonalties with the trend of vaping. “According to the survey, about 73.1 percent of people preferred smoking fruit flavors, which are approximately 1.8 million. 55.8 percent of smokers like vaping the mint flavor (roundabout 1.4 million),” this study from Revival Vape explained the pattern of the timeline of 2022. Hence, the relevance is clearly still here and the demographic for the survey was teens as well.

As of right now, the South African government has already proposed restrictions: “100 percent smoke-free for indoor public places and certain outdoor areas as the minister may prescribe; The ban on sale of cigarettes through vending machines,” Business Tech wrote.

Personally, this issue with youth vaping should have been dealt with a while ago. In 2018, a majority of teens either owned their own E-cigarette or were addicted to using it. The fact that it has been four years and how they are just now starting to discuss laws and regulations shows that politicians and the government aren’t always aware of how severe these issues truly are.

It is commonly known that our country is riddled with addiction. Additionally, teenagers are very impressionable, so in order to protect them, we need to get ahead of the problem by creating laws prior.