Vape stores clustered around schools

Almost half of schools across Aotearoa New Zealand have a specialist vape store within a 10-minute walk, despite recent legislation aimed at preventing this.

New research, which overlays vape stores on school locations, shows 44 percent of schools have a vape store within a one-kilometre radius and 13 percent have a dedicated store within 300 metres.

“That means a lot of our young people are getting multiple exposures on a daily basis to vape stores and vape marketing, to the attractive window displays and to the omnipresence of vaping, as a constantly available and easy thing to engage with,” says Ronan Payinda, a fourth-year medical student at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, who led the study.

Payinda says he saw the explosion of vaping while he was at school in Northland and felt that, as a society, Aotearoa New Zealand was failing to grapple with its potentially serious health effects.

Since 2020, it has been illegal to sell vapes to people under 18.

However, in 2021, more than a quarter (26 percent) of secondary school students reported having vaped in the previous week.

In 2023, the government passed legislation banning specialist vape stores from opening within 300 metres of schools and marae: however, existing vape shops were allowed to continue operating.

The law was a response to reports of teens, parents, schools and teachers struggling with the epidemic of vaping.

Payinda says this study, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, shows that stronger regulations are needed. Read the study.

“We are not putting the right protections in place to ensure that a whole new generation of young people aren't chained to addictions for the rest of their lives,” Payinda says.

The study looked only at specialist vape stores, whereas corner stores, petrol stations and other outlets, which sell a more limited range of vapes, are more popular with young people who reported no great difficulty making the illegal purchases.

Further, the researchers found inequity in the location of vape stores.

“We stratified these results by the level of deprivation of each community and found that there was a strong association between the level of poverty a community was suffering and the proximity of the vape stores to their schools.

Among the most affluent fifth of schools, seven percent had a specialist vape store within a 300-metre radius. Among the poorest quintile, 40 percent of schools had a specialist vape store within 300 metres.

Research in the US has found exposure to e-cigarette marketing via retail stores increases the likelihood of vape use among middle and high-school students.

The long-term health effects of youth vaping are not yet known, but strong associations are emerging, Payinda says.

The American Heart Association (AHA) says, in a statement, vapes can impair sleep quality, may affect mental health and may lead to nicotine dependence.

Available studies suggest adolescents who vape may have lower lung function and be susceptible to respiratory diseases, such as asthma, chronic bronchitis and pneumonia.

Smoking cigarettes can lead to heart disease. So, while comparable long-term data for vaping are lacking, the AHA report raises concerns about the possibility of heart disease in later years.

The number of stores selling vapes within one kilometre of schools shows there is a need for more rigorous vaping policy, Payinda says.

“We need to implement regulations to prevent young people from not just being exposed to vaping products but also accessing them and becoming addicted to them in the long term,” Payinda says.

“We need to get more serious about protecting our young people."