Welcome for age restrictions on sale of vapes

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A vape franchisor in the region says new laws around use for minors should have been brought in years ago.

Derek Cagney of MODified Vaping in Kilkenny says that the new legislation banning sale to anyone under 18 is something many shop owners have wanted to see as far back as 2016.

He says that the Government should not be given credit for this as action was too slow.

He said that while there was guidance they should only be sold to adults it was down to each retailer to police it for themselves.

Derek told Tipp Today that often ‘Pop-ups’ would sell to children in order to make profit however, up until now they have done nothing wrong in doing so.

“These are people that are looking to earn quick money and they obviously saw a gap in the market and they saw that these disposable and everything else were every profitable and they jumped on the band wagon. Now the fact that there was no law in place or no legislation or regulations in place for Under 18s you can’t really banish them either, granted on principle it is not correct but in theory they have done nothing wrong, you can’t banish them for that now in terms of regulations and stuff like that it should have been implemented way before now.”

Speaking about the new advertising laws which will restrict promotion of products on public transport, and at venues with children, he says this is merely an extension of existing rules so wont impact his business.

He goes on to say there is no evidence to claim vaping leads more young people to smoke.

“That is basically what we are guessing at, that conversation shouldn’t even be coming up because nobody under the age of 18 should be vaping anyway that is a conversation that is taking place because we have left the door wide open for use for them to get their hands on vapes. So now we have that door shut that should stop that argument, I haven’t seen the evidence of that personally but again we won’t see the results of that for maybe another two to three years.”