Draft Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 consultation: SG response – Responses from those with links to the tobacco industry

Organisation: [redacted] - Indirect

Do you have any feedback on the draft regulations to prohibit the sale and supply of single-use vapes in Scotland? - Please give us your views:

“I'm a vape store owner. Me and my employees are more than happy with the ban.

However we think it doesn't go far enough, in regards to the waste and underage usage aspects of it. As many shops will still be breaking the laws the same as before.”

Do you have any concerns about how these regulations would work in practice? - Please give us your views:

“We work very hard to make sure children don't get a hold of anything we sell in store. Other convenience stores don't hold a same high standards we do. We constantly see kids in school uniform walking out of convenience stores with vaping products. The same stores will also sell higher nicotine, non tpd compliant products.

As you are aware. Shops breaking the law selling to underagers, won't follow the tpd guidelines in compliant products either. It's common place in the news to see shops selling to underagers, getting caught with non compliant vapes

It's very easy to get illegal vaping products. Vaping stores are held to a higher standard by trading standards, and also have a lot more to lose. A convenience store only risks a small aspect of their business, so the risk is relatively low and the reward for breaking the law is high. Shopkeepers are never prosecuted for selling to minors or for having illegal products.

I suggest either prosecuting shopkeepers for selling to underagers/holding non compliant products. Or only allowed licenced vape stores to be able to sell to the public. The time spent drafting and pushing this through our parliament will be a waste of taxpayers money, if the end result doesn't reduce waste and underage vaping. And as I've established earlier, the reward is too great for non specialised stores to keep breaking the law.

So to sum up:

1. Harsher penalties for selling to underagers or having non compliant products. (There is no point in legislating the vape ban, if there's already a lucrative black market ready to replace the legitimate market, with relatively no risk for people who break the law)

Or

2. Only allow vape stores to sell vaping products. (Vape shops have a lot more to lose, if they breach the laws. Whereas convenience stores only lose a small percentage of their profits. Less accessibility to these products will also drastically cut down on vaping and underage use in general)”