'Sweetshop' vape flavours like candy floss and bubblegum should be banned – Scotsman comment

The contemptible and deeply cynical marketing of vaping – with flavours like candy floss, bubblegum and strawberry ice cream seemingly targeted at children – has the obvious effect: getting vast numbers of young people hooked on nicotine.

'Sweetshop' vapes should be banned amid alarming levels of use by children (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Whatever credit the vaping industry had accumulated for producing an alternative product to tobacco, it has now lost by failing to live up to basic standards of common decency.

The Scotsman is instinctively cautious of anything that smacks of ‘nanny state’ behaviour. However, when the health and well-being of children is concerned, the rules are different.

About a third of 15-year-olds are estimated to use vapes, with children as young as seven having tried them. According to the World Health Organisation, “these products are harmful to health and are not safe”, with studies suggesting an increased risk of heart disease and lung disorders, among other damaging effects. “Highly addictive” nicotine could also affect brain development and cause mental disorders among young people.

So the call by the Scottish Greens for a ban on vape flavours based on confectionery, desserts and berries, and for shops to voluntarily remove such items from open display, as with tobacco products, is welcome.

Suggestions that restricting the range of flavours to adults would be “illiberal” and that because it is illegal to sell e-cigarettes to under-18s, there should be no other legislation to protect children are idiotic.

Politicians must live in the real world and strike a sensible balance between rights and responsibility. The right of a grown-up to enjoy a candy floss vape is completely eclipsed by the growing tsunami of child addicts whose health is being put so callously at risk.