A plan to ban the sale of vaping products to people under-18 'could go further' and increase the limit to 21.
That is according to Dr Emmet O'Brien, Consultant Respiratory Physician at Beaumont Hospital and board member of ASH, the anti-tobacco advocacy organisation.
He was speaking as Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is to seek Cabinet approval to ban the sale of 'nicotine inhaling products' to those aged under-18 from early in the new year.
Dr O'Brien told The Pat Kenny Show there is much we do not know about these products.
"There's a lot of evidence that has yet to emerge on the health effects on individuals who vape," he said.
"There is some evidence to show that it does contain some formaldehydes and other products that can potentially be damaging to the lungs.
"There's also concerns that some of the flavouring that's added to the nicotine products could potentially damage the lungs in the future.
"More upfront, there is some evidence that it can effect the developing brain in ways that can affect attention, mood and potentially impulse control as well.
"I suppose the most certain thing that we can say that it does contain the most highly-addictive drug known - in terms of nicotine - and it's this nicotine addictiveness that can drive the tobacco use in the future.
"It can act as a gateway into tobacco use in the future".
'Enticing for young people'
A vaping device contains a coil that heats the liquid to between 300 to 400 degrees and turns it to vapour, which is then inhaled.
"It doesn't involve combustion in similar ways that you would light a cigarette, but there is high intensity heat and vaporization of liquids which do contain other chemicals which can potentially cause harm down the road," Dr O'Brien explained.
He said the wide variety of vape flavours available is "quite enticing for young people and particularly children and teenagers."
A person using a vaping device with flavoured liquid in February 2018. Picture by: eldar nurkovic / Alamy Stock Photo"There are thousands of flavours, I think the last count was somewhere around 16,000 flavours.... that appear enticing to people to smoke.
"Obviously tobacco is a flavour that may not be as enticing to young people to smoke, and one of the things I think where we would like the policy to go a little bit further is to ban the availability of flavours to children that are smoking also".
Vaping after waking
He said there has been some concerning data from the US.
"At most recent count, we could see that approximately half of our 16-year-olds have tried vaping; and somewhere between 15% and 18% of our 15 to 18-year-old currently vape.
"There's some concerning data coming from the United States where we're seeing a significant increase in the amount of addictiveness of the vaping, as well as increased dependence - meaning that they're more likely to vape within the first few minutes of waking up.
"A recent study showed that approximately 10% of teenagers or adolescents within the United States were vaping within minutes of waking up, and this really is concerning us.
"We can see that children who vape, or youth that vape, are three to five times more likely to smoke".
Dr O’Brien said banning the sale of vaping products to under-18s is a "positive step".
"Ireland has for years been a policy leader in this area; we have lagged behind our colleagues, particularly in Europe, of late and I think we could go further.
"I'm a member of ASH... and we've been advocating for a Tobacco 21 policy... where we're recommending that the age of tobacco sale raises to 21 for both tobacco and for vaping products.
"It would also be beneficial to ban flavouring... limiting the amount of advertising and the availability of vaping on influencers on social network platforms, changing of packaging and elimination of disposable vapes would all be welcome additions".
Listen back to the full interview below:
